As detailed above, medical malpractice can take many forms. At the same time, medical malpractice constitutes a specific type of negligence claim. In medical malpractice suits, a claimant alleges that a healthcare provider—which can include not only doctors and surgeons, but dentists, therapists, nurses, or individuals working under the supervision of these professionals—either acted or failed to act in a way that fell below the accepted standard of practice or care in the applicable medical community. Further, this act or omission leads to the injury or death of the patient.
However, even when someone has suffers a serious injury as a result of a medical procedure, proving that you have a valid malpractice claim is not an easy task. Medicine is not a perfect science. Even when everything is done right, things can go wrong.
Most medical malpractice lawsuits, over 95%, resolve before they go to trial. In some of these cases, the parties settle. For example, when the doctor or hospital believes that the case for negligence is relatively clear.
But in over half of the cases on file, the defendants will be able to dismiss a case for one reason or another. One difficulty is that nearly all of the proof lies in the hands and minds of the doctors and hospitals who are defending the cases. Finally, for those medical malpractice cases that do go to trial, plaintiffs win only about one-third of the time.