Discover the Complexities of Sports Injury Medical Negligence Lawsuits in New Jersey
Both professional and everyday athletes, as well as other active individuals who do not participate in a particular sport but engage in other activities like hiking, biking, running, kick-boxing, pilates, and the many other options available to live an active lifestyle today, seek help from sports medicine doctors on a regular basis. Whether you are a weekend warrior in an ice hockey recreation league or a professional athlete competing at the highest level of sport, you may have sought injury diagnosis, medical advice, and treatment from a sports medicine provider. In addition, youth sports are more popular than ever. Whether kids play in recreation leagues, club sports, or school sports, sports injuries occur more frequently, requiring visits to sports medicine doctors or athletic trainers on the field or through school sports programs.
Sports medicine specialists treat injuries common to sports players and other active people. Often, athletes’ careers depend on the healthcare they receive. However, ordinary people depend equally on proper treatment for sports injuries, as negligent medical care for one’s body can spell long-term ramifications for one’s professional career, daily activities, physical and mental well-being. Our compassionate, experienced attorneys at Fronzuto Law Group assist clients whose lives have been negatively impacted by sports medicine malpractice. We are dedicated to helping athletes and active children and adults with recovering the damages they are owed after insufficient diagnosis and treatment of sports injuries causes them additional suffering.
Types of Injuries and Conditions Treated by Sports Medicine Doctors
A sports medicine doctor specializes in injuries to the muscles, bones, tendons, and joints, the areas most affected by athletes and non-athletes training, playing sports, or exercising. They help professional and amateur athletes, as well as everyday active people, prevent and treat injuries. You can find them in private practice and on hand at professional sports events. They are also in hospitals, clinics, and rehabilitation facilities.
How Does Sports Injury Medical Malpractice Occur?
All athletes push their bodies with extensive training and extraordinary physical feats during games, so injuries often occur. When injured athletes receive incompetent care, they can suffer consequences to their health and other aspects of their life both in the long and short-term. Although unacceptable, healthcare professionals can and do make mistakes. As one can surmise, the speed and pressure of treating an injured professional player during a game make diagnosis and treatment difficult when a trainer or doctor is unprepared to practice medicine under those conditions. However, the field is not the only place where sports medicine malpractice leads to serious harm.
Sports medicine malpractice occurs when a treating physician or other healthcare professional in the sports medicine field, such as athletic trainers or orthopedists, fails to prevent, diagnose, or treat an injury and their actions fall below the reasonable and acceptable standards of care. Whether they are the sideline doctor at a professional sporting event or another healthcare provider in a hospital or other facility, the result of medical malpractice can mean the end of an athletic career or permanently sideline an individual with an active life.
Medical Negligence During Preparation and Assessment for Sports Participation
Sports-related medical malpractice can occur in all preparation, training, and performance stages. First and foremost, all organized sports participants must confirm that they are healthy to train and play a specific sport. Malpractice may happen when a healthcare provider inadequately examines an athlete before they participate. When this type of negligence occurs, a participant can be an injury waiting to happen. For example, a high school soccer player with a severe allergy to bee stings may not think to reveal that fact unless directly asked. A thorough pre-participation exam is crucial for a player’s safety.
Delayed and Misdiagnosis of Sports Injuries
Other serious malpractice involves failing to diagnose injuries quickly enough or misdiagnosing one injury as something else. When athletic trainers, sports medicine doctors, orthopedists, or other healthcare providers send an athlete home or bench them for a sprained ankle when the injury is a more serious fracture, the delayed diagnosis that an X-ray would have revealed quickly may lead to complications in treating and recovering from the injury. Misdiagnosis may happen when a sports team trainer, doctor, or therapist misdiagnoses an injury due to misreading or overlooking symptoms, misinterpreting test results, or conducting incorrect tests.
Additionally, on-field and off-field medical professionals may inadequately diagnose a condition or miss the diagnosis altogether, mistaking dizziness for heat exhaustion when the real culprit is a concussion or heart problems. More serious diagnostic errors may occur when the appropriate concussion protocol is ignored, causing lack of timely treatment and tragedy when an athlete dies.
Providing Unqualified Sport-Related Medical Care
One way for a sports medicine provider to avoid misdiagnosis and malpractice is to disclose that they are not a doctor or not a sports medicine provider and recommend someone who is. Patients should know the care level that a sports injury physician or another practitioner can provide and then decide the next best steps in their care. They should also know the true extent of their injury.
Minimizing the Extent of an Athlete’s Injury
A doctor treating an athlete or person who regularly exercises must not downplay the injury to their patient. One motivation for downplaying an injury is to keep the player playing. Professional sports are known for spectacular plays and resulting injuries that require a stoppage in gameplay and immediate pain relief measures. Astonishingly, those players are back on their feet quickly, possibly due to poor on-field injury evaluations.
A sports medicine provider may also assure a player that they are fine and do not need to seek medical attention. Their motivation may be to treat the condition for faster recovery when another medical professional may sideline a player for longer. That could mean a disadvantage for a team. However, the real danger is to the injured player, who may not receive the proper treatment. Inadequate diagnosis may also occur after an athlete receives pain medication that simply masks the severity of the injury. Overprescribing pain medication can also lead to addiction and the eventual destruction of the athlete’s career.
Mistakes During Surgery for Sports Injuries
When surgery is recommended, surgeons must perform the surgery competently or risk leaving an athlete worse off than before surgery. Surgical malpractice can take many forms, and the consequences can range from nerve damage to permanent disability, and even death. While surgery is intended to correct injuries such as ligament tears, failure to operate safely, appropriately, and expertly can cause problems that never existed pre-injury, as well as worsening complications.
Abuse by Sports Medicine Practitioners
In recent years, sexual and physical abuse by sports medicine professionals has made the news. Tragically, this misconduct occurs more frequently than one would suspect, especially among young athletes. The lasting physical and psychological effects can damage a young child or adolescent for years, if not a lifetime.
What is Required to Prove a Sports Medicine Malpractice Case?
To prove medical malpractice related to sports injuries, you must have evidence of your provider-patient relationship, which requires your doctor to practice medicine at a professional standard of care when addressing your specific injury or condition. You must also provide evidence of your provider deviating from that standard of care, including the manner of the deviation. You must also link the substandard care that you received to the further harm or injuries that it caused. Finally, you must establish that the sports-related medical negligence that occurred in your case led to specific resulting damages.
Recoverable Damages for Sports Injury Medical Malpractice
When you prove duty, breach, injury, and damages with sufficient evidence, your remedy is provided in the form of compensation. These can encompass economic and non-economic losses incurred, including the cost of your treatment and rehabilitation, as well as intangible losses like physical pain and psychological suffering. Medical costs are wide-ranging, covering reimbursement for past medical expenses and necessary funds for future medical expenses, physical therapy, and other necessary treatments and medications.
Compensation can also be recovered for lost earnings and projected future losses, which will differ significantly between an amateur or youth athlete and a professional, whose livelihood may depend on their ability to perform in a sport at their peak. The contractual salaries of professional athletes can range from hundreds of thousands to millions, especially when the athlete’s career ends with medical malpractice. Emotional and physical pain and suffering are other compensable items for ordinary adults and children, as well as others who suffer harm due to sports injury-related medical negligence.
Contact Fronzuto Law Group for Guidance with Your Sports Medicine Malpractice Lawsuit in NJ
You may not know where to begin if you suspect that a sports medicine doctor or other healthcare provider caused you harm by providing substandard care for sports-related injuries. This is why it is crucial to seek experienced legal guidance from sports medicine malpractice lawyers who can analyze, investigate, interpret, and prepare your claim for just compensation. Our accomplished team at Fronzuto Law Group is readily equipped to provide the attention, knowledge, and skill that your sports injury malpractice requires to ensure success. Contact us today at (973)-435-4551 for a free review of your case.
