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Negligent Care / Malpractice by Health Care Providers

In simple terms, medical malpractice is medical negligence that causes harm to a patient. A health care provider is negligent when that health care provider fails to provide the kind of treatment that a reasonably prudent health care provider would provide under similar circumstances. Alternatively, a health care provider can also be negligent by providing health care that a reasonably prudent health care provider would not have provided under similar circumstances.

Most health care providers dedicate their lives to helping sick people get better. We owe them our respect and gratitude for their dedication and efforts.

Unfortunately, medical negligence can cause serious harm that cannot always be fixed. It happens more frequently than we would like to imagine. Despite a health care provider’s best intentions, he or she sometimes negligently makes an error in judgment and/or a mistake in providing medical care that causes harm to the patient. For example, some hospitals fail to keep hospital rooms sufficiently clean and patients contract serious and sometimes deadly infections during the time they are in the hospital; surgeons mistakenly leave surgical instruments, sponges or towels inside the body of a patient; surgeons remove the wrong limb or treat the wrong portion of the patient’s body; nurses or pharmacists give the wrong medication to a patient; health care providers negligently fail to recognize an illness, the illness goes untreated, and the delay in treatment causes the illness to get worse or kills the patient when timely treatment could have saved the patient; an OBGYN fails to timely provide necessary medical care to a mother and/or her newborn infant that results in injury or death to the mother or child; a doctor negligently injures a patient when performing a routine test; a chiropractor manipulates a patient’s spine and negligently causes injury to the patient’s spine; hospital technicians drop a patient when transporting them; the list goes on.

More rarely, but still, unfortunately, on occasion, a health care provider harms a patient because the health care provider is practicing in an area where he or she is not qualified by training and/or experience to practice – or the health care provider is mentally or physically impaired. For example: a general surgeon decides to perform cosmetic surgeries but has not been trained in that specialty; a surgeon who is an alcoholic or is abusing drugs performs medical treatments while impaired from alcohol and/or drugs and makes a mistake that injures the patient; a doctor who suffers a medical ailment that should prevent him or her from doing certain medical procedures but nevertheless, the doctor performs the medical procedure and negligently harms the patient; etc.

When any of the above results in serious harm to the patient, that patient is legally and morally justified in seeking justice under the law for compensation for their losses. In this situation, the harmed patient should hire a lawyer they can trust to competently evaluate the claim, the damages, and provide appropriate legal advice. I am that lawyer. I welcome your call so that we can have a conversation to determine whether you have been the victim of medical negligence.

Whenever any health care provider (1) negligently fails to provide the standard of care that is customary in their field of practice, and (2) that negligence causes harm to you or a family member – harms that would not have occurred except for the negligent care – it is fair and just that the health care provider, whether hospital, doctor, dentist, chiropractor, nurse, or other kind of health care provider, compensate you and/or your family members, so that:

  • You have the money to pay other health care providers to fix any harms caused by the health care provider’s negligence; and,
  • You receive an appropriate amount of money from the negligent health care provider so that the you can:
    • Afford the cost of medical care to treat the harm caused,
    • Get reimbursement for lost wages when you or your family member can’t work because of the harm caused,
    • Be compensated for the unnecessary pain and suffering caused by the negligent health care provider.
  • If the health care provider’s negligence causes death to a family member, it is fair and just that the survivors in the family be compensated for their loss. This is true whether the person killed by the medical negligence is a father, mother, brother, sister or child. Their losses would include the mental suffering caused by the unnecessary death and the loss of the society, companionship and services of the family member who died. Even someone who is not a family member of the person killed, but depends on financial support from the person killed, may be entitled to recover compensation.

For the past 36 years (since 1978), I have provided legal representation to people injured by negligent health care providers. I know how to present the claim so that more often than not, the case gets settled quickly. A settlement means receiving fair and just compensation sooner, rather than having to wait for a long time (sometimes several years) to present your claim to a jury. Settlements also save the client the additional expenses, and emotional stress of having to participate in a lengthy jury trial. Further, when a case is settled, the client receives the settlement money right away. If you wait for a jury to award money damages, the award may be appealed by the negligent health care provider, delaying payment for a long time, sometimes, for years.

If the insurance company for the negligent health care provider that caused your injuries, or injured or killed your family member, does not agree with our estimation of the amount of money necessary to justly and fairly compensate you, I have 36 years of experience in presenting claims to juries. My expertise and skill in presenting a case to a jury provides leverage in getting the lawyers defending the negligent health care provider to settle rather than take their chances with a jury.

My brother is a well-known and respected doctor in New Mexico, so I understand and respect the well-intentioned efforts of most health care providers to help their patients. For that reason, I will not accept any claim seeking compensation for a health care provider’s negligence unless (1) there is medical negligence and (2) that negligence has caused serious injury and losses to the patient.

If you are not sure whether you have a medical negligence claim, I am glad to speak with you in a free consultation to give you my opinion about your case. Please feel free to call me at (954) 523-4101 to tell me what happened and describe your injuries. When you call that number, I will either answer the telephone or you will get my personal voice mail. If you get my voice mail and leave your name and telephone number, I will personally return your call, usually within the hour.

If you are more comfortable emailing to me a description of what happened, please fill out the form on the home page of this website and I will get back to you with an analysis of whether or not you have a medical negligence claim.

If we work together on your case, you will have my personal attention to every detail of your claim and you will never reach me through an assistant or secretary or para-legal assistant- but will always be able to reach me directly on my cell phone (or via text) or through email. In this way, you will always know what is going on in your case and can always reach me quickly with any new developments or information that I should know.

I carefully limit the number of cases I take. By limiting my practice to those who have suffered serious injuries or death because of a health care provider’s negligence, I can dedicate my time to fully developing the claim to maximize the amount of money that will be paid as compensation for injuries, lost wages, and medical expenses. If you want to verify that this is indeed how I practice law, I will gladly provide the names and contact information of past clients (who have agreed to be contacted) so that you can verify that I give personal attention to each and every client’s case.