Get Help From A Baltimore Medical Malpractice Lawyer

We trust hospitals, doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to diagnose and treat our illnesses, diseases and injuries. But unfortunately, medical professionals and facilities sometimes fail to provide the level of care they are morally and legally obligated to provide. When negligence, errors, intentional harm or fraud occur during medical care or treatment, patients are fortunate if they recover from injuries. Many medical malpractice injuries lead to lifelong disabilities or death, which devastates victims and their families.

Our team at Spector Law Group is committed to helping injured patients who live in the greater Baltimore area seek justice after a negligent medical facility or practitioner caused them harm. We also have the resources and knowledge to help other law firms with medical malpractice cases they cannot handle. In either situation, contact our Baltimore medical malpractice lawyer online or call 410-671-5605 for a free case evaluation to discuss the circumstances of your medical malpractice claim and learn how we can help.

Spector Law Group Results In Medical Malpractice Cases

Our skilled attorney represents people who have suffered injuries resulting from many kinds of personal injuries, including medical malpractice. The firm’s passion for client advocacy and case preparation has allowed them to recover tens of millions of dollars in settlements and jury awards for their clients.

Recent medical malpractice case results include:

• $10.8 million jury award for a child who developed cerebral palsy as a result of a practitioner’s failure to recognize and treat a uterine rupture during the mother’s pregnancy.
• $6 million settlement for another child who developed cerebral palsy as a result of labor and delivery malpractice.
• $4.25 million settlement for a child who suffered brain damage and developed a seizure disorder when medical staff failed to respond to symptoms of dehydration soon after birth.
• $3.5 million settlement for a child who developed cerebral palsy and suffers developmental issues resulting from mismanaged labor and delivery.

These case results serve as examples and do not guarantee a specific outcome for any specific future medical malpractice case. Each malpractice claim involves different circumstances that increase or decrease a settlement or jury award’s potential value. However, the experienced legal team at Spector Law Group aggressively pursues the maximum amount of compensation commensurate with each client’s malpractice injuries.

How Does The Law Define Medical Malpractice?

The broad definition of medical malpractice includes any act or failure by a medical professional while treating a patient that strays from accepted standards of practice in the medical community and harms the patient. From a legal standpoint, medical malpractice is a type of professional negligence.

Specific examples of actions that constitute medical malpractice when they lead to injury include:

• Failure to diagnose or misdiagnosis of illness or disease.
• Failure to take a complete patient medical history.
• Failure to order the proper diagnostic testing, including lab tests, CT scans, MRIs and X-rays.
• Surgical errors such as surgical leftovers and wrong-site, wrong-patient or wrong-procedure surgeries.
• Premature patient discharge and inadequate aftercare.
• Medication errors, including wrong amount, wrong medication or failure to administer medication.
• Anesthesia errors such as wrong drug, wrong dose or improper administration.
• Fraud, misrepresentation or other forms of intentional harm.

For more information regarding specific types of medical malpractice review some of our other practice areas:

• Defective drugs
• Birth injury cases
• Cerebral palsy injuries
• Misdiagnosis and delated diagnosis
• Medical negligence claims
• Nursing home negligence

Does Medical Malpractice In Baltimore Happen Often?

Data from the National Practitioner Data Bank reveals that Maryland patients report medical malpractice more than 300 times each year. Inevitably, many of these cases occur in and around Baltimore at places, including:

• The Johns Hopkins Hospital
• MedStar Harbor Hospital
• MedStar Union Memorial Hospital
• Mercy Medical Center
• Saint Agnes Hospital
• Sinai Hospital
• Union Memorial Hospital
• University of Maryland Medical Center

If one of these facilities or any other one in the Baltimore area injured you, call us today. No matter how big or prestigious the provider, if their malpractice injured you, we want to help.

Root Causes Of Medical Malpractice In Baltimore

Although some practitioners intentionally misrepresent themselves and their experience, most medical malpractice claims are not a result of intentional harm. Yet, medical facilities and practitioners’ choices when they care for a patient can lead to crucial mistakes that violate standards in the medical community. Many different situations can drive these choices. Some root causes of medical malpractice include:

Practitioner Fatigue

Doctors, nurses and other medical staff often have demanding schedules that include long days, double shifts and very little sleep. When medical practitioners do not get the rest they need, they can suffer impaired judgment, unsteady hands and cannot always physically provide the care and treatment a patient needs. Mistakes due to fatigue can put patients at risk for injuries, illness and death.

Communication Breakdown

Hospitals generally have multiple floors and departments to serve patients with different needs. Some hospitals do a substandard job of fostering effective communication between departments. When patients need to move from one department to another, information must follow. Breakdowns in communication are among the biggest contributors to severe medical errors such as wrong-site surgeries, wrong-patient surgeries, early discharges and medication errors.

Inadequate Staffing

Large medical providers with multiple hospitals and nursing care facilities are notorious for understaffing. When doctors, nurses and other medical professionals consistently have to work extra shifts and departments are short-staffed, it’s difficult for staff to provide an acceptable standard of care. In addition to neglecting patient needs, overworked medical professionals sometimes make severe and deadly mistakes.

Poor Training

Medical facilities have a legal obligation to train their staff properly to follow best practices in every aspect of their role. Practitioners spend years in college and nursing or medical school, but that does not negate new team members’ need to complete training in the facility and work under supervision before treating patients on their own. This is especially crucial for those with critical roles such as anesthesiologists and surgeons.

Substance Abuse

Anyone can struggle with alcohol or drug addiction. Addiction does not discriminate based on class or education, making medical professionals as vulnerable as anyone outside their field. Doctors and nurses have high-stress jobs and access to addictive medication, making it easy for some to fall into the drug addiction trap. Impaired medical practitioners make severe and potentially deadly errors during diagnosis, treatment and care of their patients.

Types Of Compensation In Baltimore Medical Malpractice Cases

If you or a loved one has suffered harm due to a medical error or the negligence of your medical provider, Maryland law permits you to seek compensation for your injuries by filing a medical malpractice claim. Settlements and jury awards compensate malpractice victims for economic and noneconomic losses incurred due to their malpractice injuries.

Economic Losses

Malpractice victims face economic losses that contribute to the value of their claims. Economic losses refer to expenses related to your injuries that directly cost you money. You can easily quantify most economic losses because you have a bill or receipt to prove them. Economic losses for future costs require estimates and are sometimes more difficult to quantify.

Common economic losses included in compensation for a medical malpractice claim include:

• Medical expenses: Medical malpractice injuries typically result in a wide range of additional medical treatment costs. Victims sometimes need ambulance service and emergency room treatment depending on the circumstances. In other cases, victims of malpractices aren’t sure exactly what’s wrong with them, so they must undergo a battery of diagnostic tests and scans. Some medical errors require corrective surgery or treatment patients would otherwise not need. In cases where a physician fails to diagnose a disease, patients who discover their condition later often need more treatment and more aggressive treatment.
• Estimated future medical expenses: Medical negligence and medical errors can lead to permanent disabilities and conditions that require ongoing care and treatment. This is especially true for birth injuries that lead to lifelong struggles for child victims. Sometimes, this also includes full-time nursing care at home or in a long-term care facility, resulting in significant economic loss for the victim or their family.
• Rehabilitation costs: Many injuries resulting from medical malpractice require at least some rehabilitation, including physical therapy, occupational therapy and other specialized treatment. Some patients also need assistive devices such as wheelchairs during recovery and beyond.
• Transfer expenses: In some malpractice cases, victims switch doctors or practitioners. Other times, medical error or negligence prompts patients to transfer to a new hospital or another facility. Transfers can be costly, depending on the circumstances and the severity of one’s condition.
• Lost wages: Suffering injury or illness resulting from medical malpractice typically requires victims to miss weeks or months from work, resulting in lost income. Parents who need to tend to a sick or injured baby or child must also take costly time away from their jobs.
• Lost earning capacity: Sometimes medical malpractice leads to permanent injuries or disabilities that prevent a patient from returning to the workplace or seeking future employment. In these situations, patients suffer severe economic loss because of lost earning capacity for the remainder of their lives.

Noneconomic Losses

Malpractice victims also suffer losses related to their injuries that are more difficult to quantify. Noneconomic losses refer to the damage and impact injuries have on a patient’s life.

Common noneconomic losses included in compensation for a medical malpractice claim include:

• Pain and suffering: Victims of medical malpractice face physical and emotional pain from the harm their medical provider caused. Physical pain and suffering refer to actual injuries or harm a patient experiences and the accompanying aches and discomfort. Emotional pain and suffering refer to the mental trauma that comes with suffering injuries at the hands of a doctor or medical facility and the associated trauma. Trauma sometimes leads to anxiety, depression, anger and other negative emotions.
• Diminished quality of life: When malpractice leads to severe injuries, victims sometimes cannot enjoy the same activities they did before their injuries. Diminished quality of life means the inability to perform daily tasks as well as enjoy recreational activities. This is especially relevant to those who are bedridden after malpractice or suffer brain injuries that impact cognitive and motor function.
• Loss of consortium: Severe injuries and permanent disabilities impact marital relations. Malpractice victims who are married sometimes receive compensation for loss of consortium with their spouse. Loss of consortium typically refers to sexual relations within a marriage as well as damage to a marriage’s emotional intimacy.
• Permanent disability or disfigurement: If medical malpractice injuries cause permanent scars, disfigurement or disabilities, settlements and jury awards can include additional compensation. Victims must cope with the frustration, humiliation, embarrassment and other negative emotions that come with a permanent scar or disability.
• Punitive damages: Compensation for punitive damages is rare. Under Maryland law, a defendant must intentionally harm a patient or defraud them for the patient to receive punitive damages. This typically does not happen. However, medical malpractice that includes the failure of a defective medical device could lead to punitive damages if the surgeon who implanted the device knew of the dangers of the product.

If you lost a loved one as a result of medical malpractice, Maryland law permits you to take legal action by filing a wrongful death claim, which could allow you to recover compensation and money for funeral expenses. Your Baltimore medical malpractice lawyer can review your case, answer questions, and determine your eligibility for compensation.

We Are Here For You And Your Family

The experienced legal team at Spector Law Group understands the medical malpractice claims process and is here to handle the details while you focus on healing or helping your loved one recover. Contact us online or call 410-671-5605 for a free case review to share your story, ask any questions and learn your legal options for seeking justice after a medical facility or practitioner harmed you or your loved one. From our Baltimore office, we represent people in Maryland and Washington, D.C.