Skilled Legal Help With Medical Malpractice Issues in Texas
Holding medical professionals accountable when malpractice leads to injury
The medical field sets high standards of practice to ensure patents’ safety and well-being. In addition, medical practitioners spend many years acquiring an education and learning how to apply acceptable medical practices so they can live up to the high quality demands of their profession. When departures from medical industry standards result in patient injury or death, grounds often exist for medical malpractice. Proving medical malpractice requires exceptional legal skills, knowledge of relevant statutes and case laws and an ability to discern when medical practice diverged from acceptable industry standards. Drawing on more than 50 years of legal practice, Kemp Law Firm is uniquely positioned for our lawyers to take on medical malpractice cases. One of our medical malpractice attorneys was a former licensed pharmacist. We have access to expert witnesses who are pivotal in bringing a case. We also have the legal prowess essential for leveling a playing field where insurance company legal teams tenaciously defend physicians, hospitals and other practitioners.
Common types of medical malpractice
Some of the more common types of medical malpractice include:
- Failure to diagnose, misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis. A large number of medical malpractice complaints arise over diagnosis failures, whether no diagnosis, misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis that harms a medical patient. Examples are cancer patients where the physician fails to send the patient to a specialist who can prescribe imaging scans or perform biopsies. The doctor may misdiagnose altogether that cancer is the underlying source of symptoms or delay for months before proper referral, allowing cancer to progress to later, less treatable stages. Heart attacks are another medical condition frequently subject to misdiagnosis. Emergency room physicians can mistake heart attack symptoms for heartburn or indigestion, where the doctor sends patients home with antacid prescriptions instead of blood thinners.
- Surgical errors. Some of the most blatant surgical errors include operating on the wrong patient, the wrong body part, performing the wrong surgical procedure or leaving a foreign object in the patient, such as a sponge.
- Anesthesia errors. Anesthesia errors, such as inadequate monitoring of the patient's vital signs during surgery, wrong anesthesia dosages, lack of familiarity with the patient's medical history for potential complications or inadequate patient instruction about not eating prior to surgery can lead to medical malpractice. Resulting injury can be substantial, leading to brain damage, permanent disabilities and even fatalities.
- Birth injuries. Lack of proper prenatal care to treat gestational diabetes or other conditions in the mother, failure to perform a timely c-section due to fetal distress or a collapsed umbilical cord, and unskilled use of vacuum extractors or forceps can seriously injure an infant. Lifelong injuries such as cerebral palsy are sometimes a result of medical malpractice.
- Prescription errors. Wrong dosages, confusions over medications with similar names or the failure to consider the possible complications of prescribing incompatible drugs can harm patients. Doctors can make mistakes and errors can also occur on the part of pharmacists.
Recovering compensation
When suing for medical malpractice, you can recover both economic and noneconomic damages. Texas has no cap on economic damages that you can recover, which include:
- Medical bills
- Future medical expenses
- Lost wages
- Lost future income
- Rehabilitative care costs
- Permanent injury expenses
However, Texas laws limit the recovery of non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases to $250,000. Examples of non-economic damages are pain and suffering, loss of quality of life or emotional distress.
Medical malpractice attorneys dedicated to maximizing your recovery
From our Woodlands law office, our lawyers at Kemp Law Firm have represented clients in Houston and throughout Montgomery County. We have the skills and experience necessary and are committed to prevailing in all types of injury and medical malpractice cases. To discuss your concerns about medical malpractice, contact us online or call (281) 203-0971.