Do you Understand Medical Malpractice?

A medical malpractice claim is a very specific thing. Some of the people who go out looking for malpractice attorneys to represent them don't even have a claim, though they may be convinced very much to the contrary. If you want to make certain that you actually have a viable malpractice claim, consider whether the following things are true. If they are not, then you still may want to speak with an attorney, but don't get too far ahead of yourself about determining that you've been the victim of malpractice.

Doctor/Patient Relationship

Here's a scenario that some people mistake for medical malpractice. A doctor casually gives you advice about something. They're not your doctor, you're not seeing them as a physician and you haven't paid them any money to be your physician. This advice turns out to have been poor or to not treat a condition that you thought it was supposed to be treating. You cannot sue the doctor for this. If you are not actually their patient, there is no way that you can allege that they aren't living up to their duties as your physician. First and foremost, you have to have had a doctor/patient relationship with the physician that you're suing.

You Were Harmed

Medical malpractice has nothing to do with being offended. If the doctor was rude to you, didn't give you as much attention as you thought you needed or otherwise made you feel offended somehow, that doesn't ascend to the level of medical malpractice. This is rudeness. You can't sue a doctor for being brusque, ornery, callous or downright rude. Is they are a good doctor and they live up to their obligations to their patients, they're free to be as rude as they want.

Disagreements

Medicine is a science and, where sciences are concerned, everybody's opinion is not equal. If you haven't any medical background and you just think that a doctor gave you the wrong treatment but you haven't suffered and you have no basis to think this other than some research you did or some other arbitrary criteria, you probably don't have a leg to stand on. When a lawyer helps you sue someone for malpractice, they will call in experts to attest to the fact that you should have received a different treatment, were diagnosed incorrectly or to verify whatever else led to your lawsuit. If the doctor didn't harm you and you just wanted a different treatment than they offered you, that's not malpractice.