What Is the Difference Between Medical Malpractice and Personal Injury?
Medical malpractice is a personal injury that enables or allows one to pursue charges against medical professionals for medical negligence and error.
It can also lead to patients suffering injuries, experiencing pain, and in some cases, death. A victim of this can seek compensation for their poor treatment.
Examples of medical malpractice are:
- Surgical errors.
- Premature discharge.
- Late diagnosis.
- Medication errors.
- Using unsterilized equipment.
Personal injury is when charges or lawsuits are made against individuals whose recklessness or negligence has caused or led to physical injuries to you. Dreesen Law Firm can help you file these lawsuits and provide good guidance in your case.
In these cases, you can file a complaint/ case against someone whose negligence caused you personal harm and seek compensation against it.
Examples of personal injury are:
- Injury at the workplace.
- Automobile accidents.
- Slipping and Falling accidents.
- Animal attacks.
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The Difference Between Medical Malpractice And Personal Injury
Personal injury and medical malpractice distinctions become apparent when you have been through a medical negligence case. These are complicated claims that require significant time, research, and documentation. They are also far more expensive to litigate and take to trial. Other differences between such areas of practice are as follows:
Complex
Personal injury claims have a much broader scope but are typically straightforward. Medical malpractice claims are solely concerned with injuries sustained while receiving medical or hospital care, and they frequently hinge on the subtleties of complicated medical issues.
Disputed Issues
Negligence is admitted in several personal injury claims. Typically, the driver who ran a stop sign and was cited by police admits fault. In medical malpractice cases, hospitals and doctors usually fight tooth and nail to refute, deny, and deny fault, even when their actions appear indefensible.
Getting an Affidavit
Before filing a lawsuit, a person who brings a medical malpractice case must acquire an affidavit (a sworn statement) from a physician stating that the defendant was reckless and caused the injury. This pre-suit requirement does not exist in any other personal injury case. Dreesen law firm can help you with all these legalities.
Good Witnesses
Medical negligence cases frequently require the hiring of numerous good testimonies, whose charges for reviewing records and offering an objective opinion on accounts of events can be prohibitively expensive. This makes pursuing medical negligence cases far more expensive (and risky).
Statute of limitations
In most states, the statute for bodily personal injury claims differs from the statute of limitations for medical malpractice suits. In addition, if the medical malpractice results in death, there may be a two-year time limit for seeking justice for the wrongful death.
Success rates
Medical malpractice cases are far more challenging to prove. Furthermore, statistics show that general personal injury cases have a much higher plaintiff success rate than medical malpractice suits. This emphasizes the importance of hiring an attorney with vast experience and a detailed understanding of medical malpractice claims, which can only be obtained through a sole focus on the practice.
Final Thoughts
If you are unsure whether your claim is for personal injury or medical malpractice, you can be confident that our law firm can handle both claims. Dreesen law firm has an experienced team of legal professionals ready to discuss your case, answer your questions, and outline your legal options.
