GEORGIA LAWYER HANDLING CASES OF MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
— Abraham Lincoln
GETTING ANSWERS AFTER MEDICAL TRAGEDIES
Our clients are facing tremendous challenges. We are here to help answer your questions and guide you through the process. The experience that we have seen in our practice is that when you or a loved one have suffered a serious medical injury, the doctor, nurse, and hospital or healthcare facility will not take responsibility. Unfortunately, the impact on the patient and their loved ones is often serious when they have suffered from a medical mistake.
In our experience, some providers may say one thing, and another says something else, or won’t talk to the family at all. After a bad outcome, the family and patient may not be thinking about negligence or a lawsuit, but there is confusion and very often grief or worry. Unfortunately, medical providers can come across as non-communicative and arrogant, making the situation worse. When that happens, there is frequently a betrayal of trust and feeling of abandonment. This can happen to anybody, whether they are regular people, who happen to be highly educated and used to receiving the best care, to folks that are marginalized by society, perhaps because of their medical condition, or for countless other reasons which do not excuse or justify improper medical care.
FOCUSING ON COMPLEX MEDICAL MALPRACTICE CASES
I focus my practice on complicated personal injury cases, including medical malpractice cases because it is the sort of work that I believe in and have been trained to do. My experience is in working on complex injury cases in private practice and before that, I worked for a federal trial judge for several years. I find it very rewarding to use that experience on behalf my clients, who, generally, have been traumatically injured by the carelessness of others. This is almost always a fight that I get to take on for regular people against powerful institutions in our society. The genius of our civil justice system is that an ordinary jury of citizens in the community provides that accountability. Without the jury, there are scant few other checks on such unbridled power. I am proud of the role I can play in that process and these are a few of the main reasons why I focus my practice on these kinds of cases.
If you work with The Babcock Law Firm, I will answer your questions and work with you directly, from the time you call until your matter is resolved. We will get the right help and experts to assist us along the way, of course, because these sorts of lawsuits are large undertakings that require additional assistance for proper professionals. If you work with the firm, we will get to know you and your family well. We will be in close contact with you to learn your story and to keep you updated. Our philosophy is that there is no other way to effectively present your story to the jury, and it is the approach we take with our cases. Of course, you will not owe a fee to the firm unless we recover in your case, either at trial or by settlement.
SURGERY CASES
Some cases of problems of surgery are “never events” – meaning there is no circumstance under which the error should have occurred. Although it can be difficult to believe, the wrong leg or arm can be operated on. Other cases will be more nuanced and may require a thorough investigation, but can at times involve issues with failures in the requirement that informed consent be given to the patient before the surgery. The patient may have been at a heightened risk for a problem before the surgery, and that fact may have been missed or not warned against. In other circumstances, the surgeon may cut or nick a bowel or nerve erroneously or on accident. In other cases, surgical site infections can result with disastrous, life-threatening consequences. One common example of this type of hospital acquired infection is MRSA. Where there are potential instances of surgical negligence, we can review the case and will work with appropriate medical experts to help you determine whether malpractice may have been involved.
ANESTHESIA MALPRACTICE
Mistakes by anesthesiologists are less common than they once were, but unfortunately, such problems do sometimes happen. One example involves the wrong amount or combination of medication that is given. Allergic reactions and drug interactions can result from mistakes by anesthesiologists, nurses, and other health care providers. Another potential problem can result where the nurse anesthetist has failed to properly monitor the patient’s vital signs during the surgery itself, including oxygen supply and blood pressure of the patient.
MISDIAGNOSIS OR DELAYED DIAGNOSIS
Sadly, a timely and proper diagnosis can often mean the difference between life and death. This is particularly true when confronting a disease like breast cancer. If you or a family member potentially has a claim based on the failure to diagnose a kind of cancer, or even if a loved one has died in such circumstances, we can help you evaluate the medical record and care to determine whether your health care providers were negligent in the screening, testing or interpreting tests in the hospital lab or by the radiology unit.
HOSPITAL LIABILITY FOR IMPROPER CARE
While hospitals will not be responsible for every act of improper medical care that occurs at the hospital, there can be responsibility by the hospital where policies of the hospital played a role in the harm, or when institutional decisions were a cause of an injury to the patient, among other circumstances. This is a question that can be difficult to determine when you just look at surface of the problem. If you work with The Babcock Law Firm, we will undertake the discovery of responsibility for your case carefully, with medical experts that can help us analyze the question of responsibility.
MALPRACTICE IN EMERGENCY MEDICAL CARE
These types of cases are the most challenging types of claims to bring in Georgia for cases involving medical mistakes. Under Georgia law, plaintiffs must establish gross professional negligence (rather than professional negligence) by clear and convincing evidence, a higher standard of proof than applies in other civil cases, including other medical malpractice cases, where the standard would be more likely than not. This is the strictest emergency medical care law in the nation and it makes pursuing these cases more difficult if you or a loved one have suffered harm because of improper care in this context. These types of cases can frequently involve care for physical injuries like broken bones, but not checking for traumatic brain injury or concussion problems, or they could involve the misdiagnosis or mistreatment of a life-threatening medical condition before it is too late, like heart attack or stroke, or the failure to order tests so that an appropriate care plan can be instituted.
FILING A COMPLAINT IN A MEDICAL INJURY CASE
Before any medical negligence case is filed in Georgia, a proper medical expert must agree that the responsible health care provider was negligent. In appropriate cases, we work to locate the right expert to file an affidavit to support such medical malpractice complaints in Georgia. Perhaps the most important thing we do in these cases is carefully determine how the patient was injured, and whether the harm was avoidable. Of course, in some cases, there can be a terrible medical outcome, but it will not be attributable to a medical mistake. We will work hard to determine how the injury took place, and then give you our best advice about whether a lawsuit should be pursued or not.
For more information, contact The Babcock Law Firm. If you have questions, or want a free evaluation of your case, call for a free consultation at 912-574-7575.
