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If you are facing a medical malpractice claim, you will need to build a defense against the claim if you feel that it is not accurate. To build a strong defense, you will need to work with a medical malpractice attorney. A medical malpractice attorney can help you build a strong defense. There are a few defense strategies that they may employ.
Defense Strategy #1: Pre-Existing Injury
One of the first things that you and your attorney will want to look at is if the injury you are accused of in the claim is actually the result of a disease or illness that the patient had before. It is not uncommon for a patient to associate their most recent treatment with their most recent injury, when in fact, that injury may be a result of a condition that they had before that just took a while to impact their body.
Defense Strategy #2: Equipment
Second, another defense strategy you can consider is an equipment failure that was out of your control. If you worked on a patient in a clinic or in a hospital, for example, and you were using their equipment, and their equipment failed to perform as it should or gave you incorrect or inaccurate information, you can argue that it was the fault of the equipment, not you. In that case, the patient should be pursuing a case against the medical facility itself or the equipment manufacturer. You can't be held responsible for equipment not giving you the right information, especially if it appears that it is working correctly when you were using it.
Defense Strategy #3: Recognized Risk
There is a reason that you have to give patients a verbal talk about all the risks when you are doing an operation, procedure, or giving them medication. There is a reason that you also provide those risks in written form and have the patient sign a paper acknowledging those risks.
There are risks involved with medical treatment, and although those risks are low, sometimes they do occur. That is why you get consent before performing medical treatment. If the injury is a known risk, you can't be held liable for it. It is a risk that the patient knew that they were taking. Paperwork can help back up this defense.
You will want to sit down with your medical malpractice defense attorney and carefully review the case. You will need to determine what happened and what could have caused the patient's injury outside of you not doing your job. This analysis will help you and your attorney pick the right defense method for the case.
Share21 January 2022
