New Jersey Physician Negligence Lawyers
Experienced Attorneys Representing Clients Injured by Negligent Doctors throughout NJ
Negligence by a doctor can occur in a myriad of ways, ranging from delayed diagnosis to errors during surgery, and medication mistakes. While malpractice among physicians is highly variable, a singular reality reigns true among these cases: they have the potential to cause serious harm for patients. As a person seeking medical care, you undoubtedly place your trust and confidence in the doctor whose fundamental responsibility is to help you. Unfortunately, doctors are only human and as such, they err like the rest of us. Given the stakes when you have a serious or even life-threatening condition, a physician’s negligence may spell permanent negative implications for your health and well-being. Injuries resulting from inadequate care by a doctor can range from minor to incredibly severe. The signs and symptoms are similarly variable, with some injuries that can persist for months or even years without detection. Regardless of the specific situation, when physicians in all specialties make mistakes or otherwise fail to provide the proper standard of care, victims may be left to suffer the repercussions. When these tragic events occur, patients in New Jersey have the right to hold negligent doctors accountable and to seek just compensation for their injuries.
At Fronzuto Law Group, our highly distinguished New Jersey medical malpractice attorneys have extensive experience representing victims of physician negligence. As dedicated lawyers with a practice concentrating on medical malpractice litigation, our team has invaluable knowledge in this highly complex area of law, which we use on a daily basis to best serve our clients. Whether you, your child, or another person you love suffered harm resulting from malpractice by a doctor in New Jersey, we will walk you through every phase of the legal journey ahead in pursuit of maximum compensation. You deserve justice and a sizable financial recovery for past and future medical expenses, lost income, supportive therapies, assistive devices and medical technologies, necessary accommodations in your home and elsewhere, and the pain and suffering incurred as a result of your injuries. To discuss your specific physician negligence case with an experienced attorney who can further investigate, determine your grounds for a claim, and zealously pursue damages on your behalf, contact us today. A member of our team is available immediately to assist you at (973)-435-4551 and consultations are always provided free of charge.
Bringing a Lawsuit for Physician Negligence
In order to bring a successful lawsuit against a negligent doctor, the physician must have failed to uphold the proper standard of care. To establish the standard of care in a particular malpractice case, the defendant physician’s conduct is measured against that of physicians with the same education, skills, and experience when attending to a patient under the same circumstances. The measurement of negligence alleged in a malpractice claim is thus, contingent upon the specific situation, the patient’s medical history, signs and symptoms, preexisting conditions, allergies, age, current condition, and more. Ultimately, a doctor’s handling of a patient’s diagnosis and treatment is compared with other doctors when presented with a similar situation, to establish blameworthy error in a malpractice lawsuit.
If negligent conduct can be established, there are two other critical criteria for a successful claim. First, there must have been a doctor-patient relationship between the patient and the doctor named in the lawsuit. Second, the identified errors or negligence by the physician must have resulted in the patient’s injuries. Notably, injuries can range from serious complications due to failure to treat a medical condition, to further health problems resulting from an undiagnosed or misdiagnosed disease. Regardless of the specific errors and resultant harm in your case, you have the right to seek compensation for medical and economic losses, pain and suffering, and the other tangible and intangible costs of avoidable injuries.
Types of Doctors Named in Malpractice Lawsuits
Family physicians and specialists across a vast array of medical specialties may be sued for malpractice when these doctors fail to accurately diagnose, treat, or otherwise care for their patients. For example, an internal medicine doctor, also referred to as an internist, may be named in a negligence claim if he or she fails to properly care for an adult patient. Beyond general practitioners, negligence also occurs among specialists, particularly those that deal with dangerous and potentially fatal conditions. If your family physician cannot clearly diagnose your condition, quite likely they will refer you to a specialist with advanced training to identify conditions indicated by your symptoms. A specialist knows far more than a generalist about a specific part or system of the body, and patients trust them to better diagnose and treat a condition within their medical specialty. So, when you suffer an injury at the hands of a specialist, you may especially feel that your trust was misplaced.
A doctor with specialized education and training beyond basic medicine in a specific practice area is a medical specialist. Allergists, cardiologists, and plastic surgeons are just three examples of the hundreds of medical specialties and subspecialties that exist. Some specialists are well-known by most people, many of whom have used their services, such as pediatricians and obstetricians, while some are only seen for rarer conditions, like hematologists.
While the advanced knowledge that medical specialists acquire in education and experience distinguishes them and their patients to an elite niche of medicine, there is an unfortunate downside to such exclusivity for some specialists. Certain specialties, by their nature, deal with higher risk patients for the more life-threatening conditions. As such, mistakes in these areas are costlier and more numerous. Neurosurgeons, obstetricians, and neurologists, for example, have the potential to cause direct and catastrophic harm when they commit errors in the course of treating their patients. Other doctors that may be the subject of negligence claims include general surgeons, anesthesiologists, gynecologists, radiologists, pathologists, and rheumatologists.
In some cases, operating in a high-stakes environment like a hospital setting, urgent care facility, or emergency room can increase the likelihood of mistakes and preventable injuries. In actuality, far too many malpractice cases are attributable to overworked and understaffed offices and facilities, and the doctors they employ.
Errors that May Lead to Physician Negligence Claims
The most common sources of physician negligence occur in the realm of diagnosis, as diagnostic errors may occur when a doctor misidentifies the patient’s condition, fails to investigate alternative conditions that may be responsible for causing the patient’s symptoms, fails to order appropriate tests or misreads the test results, or worse, fails to diagnose the condition at all. Other forms of negligence by doctors involve surgical, medication, and treatment mistakes, all of which have the potential to lead to serious harm. Regardless of the doctor’s area of practice or the specific manner in which they failed to provide adequate care, these errors may cause severe emotional distress and major physical injuries. It is an unfortunate reality, but negligent doctors may not be recognized until after their substandard care causes catastrophic results, namely death and serious injury.
Consult a Knowledgeable NJ Physician Malpractice Lawyer Today
No matter who you are, when relying on a doctor, diagnostic, medication, and treatment errors can lead to life-changing permanent injury. If you have been left to suffer the costs of a physician’s negligence in New Jersey, you should strongly consider speaking to a medical malpractice attorney who can assess your individual situation and explain the avenues that may be available to you. If you believe your injury resulted from negligence by a doctor, our lawyers can help. Call (973)-435-4551 for a free consultation and learn more now.
