Medical Malpractice

Medical Malpractice is unfortunately uncommon. Doctors aren’t perfect. They may mistakes. In fact, the Institute of Medicine estimates that as many as 98,000 people are killed each year in America as a result of medical errors. Just like everyone else, it is important that doctors and medical providers own up to their mistakes and compensate patients injured as a result of medical negligence. Misdiagnosis, improper surgical procedures, medication errors, and nursing home abuse costs innocent individuals money, their health, and all too often their lives. Unfortunately, medical malpractice often devastates individuals who are already facing difficult life situations. To make matters worse, legislators across the country- including in Texas- are passing laws making it difficult to pursue claims against medical providers and limiting the amounts individuals injured as a result of medical malpractice are allowed to recover. This makes it all the more important that you hire experienced and competent medical malpractice attorneys to represent you.

Call the Dallas medical malpractice attorneys at Lovins Law today at 214-484-1930

If you or a loved one has been injured as a result of medical negligence and the health care professional refuses to accept responsibility, the medical malpractice attorneys at Lovins Law can help. We have the experience and resources to take on the health care providers and their insurance companies and fight to get you the compensation you deserve. Our attorneys have handled a vast array of medical malpractice cases including:

• Surgical mistakes (wrong procedure, injury to other organs, etc.)
• Chiropractor errors
• Improper or failure to diagnose (including heart attacks)
• Nursing home/rehabilitation center abuse (bed sores, dropped patients, etc)
• Anesthesia errors (insufficient anesthesia, premature extubation, etc)
• Nursing mistakes
• Physician assistant errors
• Drug errors (improper dosages, toxic buildup, etc)

Medical mistakes are not confined to hospitals. Medical negligence occurs in any setting where patient care occurs, including in a doctor’s office, in an outpatient clinic, in a laboratory or anywhere that a healthcare professional cares for patients. Moreover, medical malpractice is not limited to the actions of doctors, especially today where so much responsibility for patient care is delegated to nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. No matter where the medical negligence occurred or what type of medical professional made the mistake, the attorneys at Lovins Law are ready to aggressively fight for you.  Call us today so we can discuss your case in detail. As always, all initial consultations are free, and you do not owe us any fees unless we recover.

Types of Common Medical Malpractice Cases

Nursing Home Abuse Cases: Our elderly are often denied the basic medical care we expect when placed in nursing homes. Rather than living their last precious days in comfort, our elderly are often subjected to unnecessary pain and discomfort due to easily preventable errors. The attorneys at Lovins Law have litigated nursing home cases where our elderly were not provided medication as prescribed, developed severe bed sores requiring surgical intervention due to improper wound care, and fell due to the carelessness of nursing home staff in executing proper fall precautions.

Misdiagnosis Cases: The economics of medical care requires doctors to see more patients per day, thereby forcing them to spend less time with each patient. In hospitals, patients are often treated by interns that work long hours and get little rest. This is a recipe for medical malpractice with symptoms being overlooked, lab reports being misread, or diagnostic procedures being performed improperly. A perfect example of a misdiagnosis case is as follows:

A 55 year old patient goes in to see their doctor complaining of chest pain, shortness of breath, pain radiating down his left arm and other symptoms consistent with a heart attack. Because the doctor is busy, he is seen by a physician’s assistant who diagnosis him with a muscle strain and sends him home with muscle relaxers without performing even basic tests to rule out a myocardial infarction. He is found dead in his bed the next day due to a heart attack.

Surgical Error Cases: Everyone has heard the classic medical malpractice horror story of a patient getting the wrong leg amputated. Unfortunately, this type of stories is true. Carelessness in the operating room all too often results in surgical equipment being left in patients, organs being injured during surgery, and even the wrong procedure being performed. These errors often result in severe infections, disfigurement, additional surgeries, and death.

Improper Anesthesia Cases: The anesthesiologist arguably has the most important job in the operating room- keeping the patient alive and pain free during the procedure. As such, when the anesthesiologist fails to perform at the requisite standard of care, patients endure severe consequences. Whether it is failing to provide the appropriate dosage of anesthesia to prevent pain, failing to properly monitor the patients vital signs during surgery, failing to evaluate the patients intubation risks, or extubating a patient too soon after surgery, the decisions made by an anesthesiologist are a matter of life and death.

Where Do You Go From Here

Unfortunately for patients that have suffered becasue of medical malpractice, many states, including Texas, have made the road to recovery difficult. Before any suit can be filed, notice of a potential claim must first be sent to all potential parties to the lawsuit. In response to the notice, the potential defendants are required to produce to your attorney within 45 days of the notice all medical records pertaining to your care in their possession. Once suit is filed, we then need to serve the defendants with an expert report within 120 days of filing the complaint detailing how the defendant deviated from the appropriate standard of care and how that deviation caused the your injuries. There are also very specific rules as to who is allowed to act as an expert in a medical malpractice case. Even if we are successful in establishing that the defendant committed malpractice, the Texas legislature limited the amounts that an injured party can recover, including a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages.Even though the legislature has done its best to make the road to recovery difficult, the Dallas medical malpractice attorneys at Lovins Law are ready to take on this challenge and fight for you.

Contact the Medical Malpractice Attorneys at Lovins Law today at 214-484-1930.