Personal Injury Attorney
When you go to a doctor’s office or a hospital, you are putting your life in the hands of someone you believe you can trust. This is true whether your doctor is simply diagnosing a cold and giving you medication for it or if you are at the hospital undergoing surgery for an appendectomy. Whatever your reason for being there, you trust that the doctors, nurse, and staff will treat you with respect and give you the proper treatment. However, this is not always the case. If a doctor injured you while they were treating you at a hospital should you sue the hospital? Below, you will find out more information on when it is best to file a claim or sue a hospital for medical malpractice and how a hospital accident attorney can help you.
When are hospitals liable for their employees’ actions?
When you go to a hospital and one of the hospital’s staff (say, a doctor or a nurse) treats you negligently or incompetently, the hospital is probably responsible for any injuries that the staff caused you. When you hire a hospital accident attorney for your case, they can help you determine if your injuries were something that a doctor could have avoided (but instead acted carelessly) or if it was a decision that any other reasonable doctor would have made.
Additionally, your hospital accident attorney can help you determine the circumstances surrounding your injury and whether they qualify as medical malpractice. For example, if a hospital employs a nurse and they were on-the-job and caused your injury while he or she was working, the hospital may be liable.
Times When the Hospital Might Not be Liable
Your accident attorney can also help you determine times when the hospital is not liable but someone else might be. For example, when a hospital has a visiting doctor who is not actually employed at the hospital and they make a mistake while taking care of you, the hospital likely would not be liable for your injuries. The doctor (or the doctor’s hospital) would. Similarly, if a nurse or other physician is under the watch of a doctor and makes a mistake, your hospital accident attorney may have more of a case to go after the doctor than the hospital.
Other Times a Hospital Might be Liable
If the hospital keeps a doctor on staff that they know is incompetent, or if they give a doctor who is an independent contractor staff privileges and that doctor is incompetent, it is possible for your hospital accident attorney to pursue a lawsuit against the hospital and still hold them liable for the doctor’s actions. For example, if they had hired a doctor who was previously very reputable and in good standing but later became addicted to alcohol, it is the hospital’s responsibility to ensure that doctor does not keep treating patients at their hospital.
Reach out today for more information on how a medical malpractice lawyer Washington, DC relies on can help you pursue a medical malpractice case and to learn more about when a hospital is liable. Thank you to our friends Cohen & Cohen, P.C. for their insight into medical malpractice and hospital accidents.
