What Medical Injuries do Children Suffer?

Many people cannot fathom how their children get hurt while in the care of physicians and their aids. This should be one of the places where they are most protected from injury. So when we meet with kids and their parents they have been the victim of medical malpractice, we try and point out a few sources of common problems in the healthcare industry. First, doctors can have a limited range in diagnosing and finding the problem. You should question physicians when they are reviewing children so that they don’t miss anything. Second, ask what other kinds of doctors your child needs to see and why they are referring the patient to other professionals in the first place. This will also give you more insight into the scope and nature of the problem according to the doctor’s opinion. Third, research for yourself or ask for another opinion if the care originally rendered was appropriate and sufficient in the first place. Fourth, examine the discharge papers and other instructions given to see if they are complete and correct. Fourth, look at the devices and medications prescribed by your child’s doctor. These might be improper in terms of their dosage or even usage generally. These are the dimensions where we normally see kids get hurt by medical professionals and they are where you should look to keep your kid safe!

Even if you can isolate that your child was harmed while under the care of a medical professional such as a doctor or nurse, it can still be hard to connect the dots to legal culpability. Medical malpractice takes a showing of specific points.

First, you must demonstrate a local, contemporary standard of care using expert testimony. Illinois law also requires an affidavit from a physician that the case has merit prior to filing the lawsuit. Then, you must establish how the defendant’s care to the plaintiff did not meet that standard. Finally, you must highlight how this failure, and only this failure, caused the plaintiff’s injuries. Obviously, this task is not for beginners: multiple doctors can confuse who was at fault; deteriorating patient conditions can muddy whether even any doctor created the problem; facts can question if the issue existed when the plaintiff presented to the defendant. This is why qualified counsel is so vital for medical malpractice cases and why your children needs superb representation as soon as possible.