Medical malpractice occurs when a healthcare provider’s negligence harms a patient. Common malpractice cases involve misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, surgical errors and medication mistakes. Misdiagnosis alone leads to an estimated 371,000 deaths and 424,000 permanent disabilities each year in the United States. Surgical errors happen more than 4,000 times per year, with retained surgical items and wrong-site surgeries causing severe injuries or death. Medication errors are also widespread: about one in 20 patients experiences medication-related harm, and more than 1.3 million Americans are injured by medication mistakes every year.
Types of Malpractice
- Failure to diagnose or delayed diagnosis: A doctor may miss signs of cancer, stroke or infection, leading to worsened outcomes. The overall diagnostic error rate across diseases is 11.1 percent.
- Surgical errors: “Never events” such as operating on the wrong body part, leaving instruments inside patients or performing the wrong procedure can cause life-threatening injuries.
- Medication errors: Wrong drug, wrong dose or harmful drug combinations can lead to hospitalizations. Many errors occur at the prescribing stage.
- Anesthesia mistakes: Improper monitoring or dosing can cause brain injury or death.
Florida Medical Malpractice Law
Florida imposes a two-year statute of limitations for medical malpractice claims, measured from the time you knew or should have known of the injury. There is also a four-year statute of repose. Before filing suit, you must conduct a presuit investigation and provide notice to prospective defendants. These procedural requirements make malpractice cases complex. If you believe you or a loved one has been harmed by medical negligence in Palm Beach County or elsewhere in Florida, contact Souder Law promptly. We work with medical experts to review your records, determine whether standards of care were breached and pursue fair compensation for your injuries.
