Physicians and other medical professionals train for years to understand how your body works and what to do when it does not. Your healthcare provider may advise that you need surgery or medications to address your condition, and generally, your condition will improve based on their help. But if your healthcare provider is negligent and makes a mistake, you can be seriously harmed.
Medical malpractice is a specific type of personal injury claim that arises from the negligent conduct of medical professionals. The Virginia Medical Malpractice Act defines malpractice and identifies which medical care providers can be held liable. But to hold them accountable, you need an experienced medical malpractice attorney who thoroughly understands how to proceed and prove negligence in Charlottesville medical malpractice cases.
According to Virginia Code § 8.01-581.1, malpractice is a legal action that is based upon a tort (a wrongful act) or a breach of contract for medical care. The tort involves injuries, harm, and sometimes wrongful death, caused by medical professionals while they are administering healthcare services to patients.
The Act does not just hold physicians to high standards. Other healthcare providers can also be liable, including:
Virtually any Charlottesville healthcare provider whose actions meet the definition of negligence can be held liable for medical malpractice. To assess whether you have a viable case, consult a skilled attorney now.
Negligence in any situation involving a personal injury includes four elements: duty, breach of that duty, causation, and damages. Your attorney must prove all elements for a claim to succeed. Under Va. Code § 8.01-581.20, a healthcare provider has a duty to provide the same quality of care that a reasonable, competent provider with similar qualifications in the same specialty would provide in a like situation.
A medical care provider breaches their legal duty when their actions or inactions fall below the reasonable provider standard. In order for their medical malpractice claim to prevail, the injured patient’s lawyer must prove that the provider’s wrongful conduct caused the patient’s injuries. To do so, they must prove that the injuries were a foreseeable result and that the patient would not have been injured but for those actions. Establishing negligence in medical malpractice claims also means your Charlottesville attorney must enlist an expert witness to concur with the standard of care.
Virginia requires the plaintiff’s attorney to enlist an expert witness to establish the standard of care and testify how the medical provider fell below it. This is necessary so the jury understands not only the concept of standard of care, but also how and why the defendant medical professional fell below it.
The expert witness must be a medical provider in the Commonwealth, licensed in the same or similar specialty as the defendant, and if not part of an active medical office, must have practiced medicine within a year of testifying about negligence in a Charlottesville medical malpractice trial.
Medical malpractice cases tend to be more difficult, technical, and procedurally complex than other types of personal injury cases.
Not all personal injury attorneys in Charlottesville handle negligence in medical malpractice cases because they require medical and scientific knowledge, experience, and a command of the intricate procedural rules that govern these cases. For this reason, many attorneys in Charlottesville, in Virginia, and throughout the country refer their medical malpractice cases to MichieHamlett, because they know that we have proven success handling medical negligence claims. Contact our team to schedule a confidential consultation about your experience.
