When your condition becomes too complex for the training of your own doctor, he or she must refer you to a specialist. If your doctor continues to treat you anyway, then he or she could be liable for injuries caused by a delay in treatment or inappropriate treatment. A physician's failure to follow these basic steps can result in a misdiagnosis. The fracture goes undetected and you don't get the proper treatment, resulting in a permanent and debilitating injury to your leg. The doctor may be negligent for failing to order an X-ray or other diagnostic tests needed to determine whether your leg is broken.
Medical malpractice can occur at any point in the diagnosis and treatment course.
For example, a medical technician may make a mistake with a critical diagnostic test and write down the wrong results, leading to a misdiagnosis. Or the wrong chart is placed at your bedside and you receive a prescription you are allergic to that causes serious harm or even death. Burden of proof in medical malpractice cases To succeed in a malpractice suit, you must prove that the error directly caused the subsequent health problems. For this reason a medical expert is vital to medical malpractice cases. A witness with expertise in the same area as the defendant would testify that any other doctor with the same training would not have made the error.