Medical Malpractice Terms and Definitions

Duty of Care Once a doctor or health care professional agrees to diagnose or treat a patient, he or she has assumed a duty of care toward that patient. Noneconomic damages Damages payable for items other than monetary losses, such as pain and suffering. The term technically includes punitive damages, but those are typically discussed separately. Comparative negligence The doctrine of comparing degrees of fault among the responsible parties. Joint-and-several liability Liability in which each liable party is individually responsible for the entire obligation. Under joint-and-several liability, a plaintiff may choose to seek full damages from all, some, or any one of the parties alleged to have committed the injury. Anesthesia A large class of claims related to anesthesia has resulted from cases where the anesthesiologist or anesthetist did not take a complete medical history of angina, myocardial infarction, recent upper respiratory infection, and asthma. Obstetrics Prenatal care requires collecting, tracking and analyzing a complex series of clinical data collected over several prenatal visits. Medical negligence Failure of a physician or other medical personnel to meet the standards of conduct for duties relating to the medical profession. Those standards are based on what a reasonable person with the requisite knowledge and skills would or would not do. Causalgia Pain, usually burning, that is associated with autonomic changes -- change in color of the skin, change in temperature, change in sweating, swelling. Causalgia occurs after a nerve injury. Res ipsa loquitur The use of res ipsa loquitur should be prohibited in medical malpractice cases because under this doctrine the mere fact that the injury occurs means that the defendant was negligent, although it is not all the time. Surgical Error Surgical errors may occur in any kind of medical procedure involving intrusive and non-intrusive surgery. Even the simplest of cosmetic surgical procedures may result in a surgical error.

Please contact us if anyone you know has suffered from debilitating injuries due to medical malpractice in Utah.

	Did You Know?
	Errors in hospital Emergency Rooms are a common occurrence They are infrequently talked about and rarely reported to the media. That is why you don't hear about these types of cases on the news. Understaffed hospitals or ill-equipped emergency rooms may lead to fatal errors while dealing with patients requiring emergency treatment. When the necessary steps of treating an emergency room patient are sidestepped, then an emergency error may result.