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Medical Malpractice in California – Can I Sue My Doctor?

It goes without saying that doctors should give the best medical treatment to their patients. If a doctor does not treat a patient as per medical standards, then that patient can choose to sue that doctor. Read on to know more.

Negligence

Negligence is one of the main kinds of medical malpractice. You can file a case against the doctor if he or she does not treat you properly. This means the treatment should not fall below a standard. The court will make him pay compensation to you if you prove that he was negligent.

Before prescribing a medicine or running a diagnosis, the doctor should let you know about your condition. It is your right to know the details of treatment doctor will give you. And the doctor should ask your permission before operating on you or giving your certain medicine involving risk. Once you have given permission, the doctor can make a start on giving you medicine or operating on you.

The law requires any doctor to obtain the consent of their patient before giving any kind of treatment to them. In order to do this, the doctor should give you complete details of your condition as well as the type of medicine or treatment he or she is going to prescribe you.

If a doctor fails to follow the procedure, she or he may have to deal with a medical malpractice case in California Courts. However, keep in mind you can file a case only if the doctor did not let you know about the risks involved in the treatment.

Patient-doctor Contracts

Another type of medical malpractice is the breaking of contract between the patient and the doctor. A few years back, this was not included in types of medical malpractice, but it has be added to the types in some states.

You should seek help from a medical malpractice lawyer in California as soon as possible. They can deal with these types of cases and know the right way to handle hospital heads as well as insurance providers.

Keep away from signing anything. The doctor may give some ordinary documents to sign. They do so in such situations so do not sign them. Instead, take them to your lawyer.

Here it is important to keep in mind that you can lodge a medical malpractice claim within a time period of one year from the time you got injured due to bad treatment. So, you should get a lawyer and file a case at the earliest.

One last comment

Some people do not find it suitable to file a case against their family doctor. This is a good thing but at the same time that doctor is responsible to give you good treatment and if he has not, you have a right to hold him liable and pay you compensation for the trouble you went through.

So, these are a few types of medical malpractice. If you think you have been a victim of any of these types of medical negligence, you can file a case in order to teach the negligent doctor a lesson.