In litigation, a common defense strategy involves attributing injuries to a preexisting condition rather than to medical negligence. Successfully countering this requires malpractice lawyers in Maryland to take a strategic approach, using medical facts and legal expertise, to unequivocally establish the link between the medical professional’s actions and the patient’s injuries.
How Can You Prove Your Injuries Were Caused by Medical Malpractice and Not a Preexisting Condition?
Many medical malpractice lawsuits depend on differentiating between injuries caused by a healthcare provider’s negligence and those stemming from a patient’s preexisting conditions. The defense might argue that the injuries were inevitable due to the preexisting condition, thereby absolving the medical practitioner from liability.
Proving that your injuries were indeed caused or made worse by a medical professional’s actions, and not just because of your preexisting condition, involves making some detailed medical assessments. These evaluations will focus on your health status before you received the medical care in question and immediately after, highlighting disparities in your health that suggest malpractice.
For example, medical records, diagnostic tests, and expert opinions may all be used to ascertain the nature of the preexisting condition and whether the medical intervention (or lack thereof) contributed additional, and avoidable, harm.
Medical Records
One of the most important proofs you can bring will be through a comprehensive review and analysis of your medical records. These documents chronicle your health history, the condition you presented with, the prescribed treatment, and your subsequent health status. They contain vital information, including diagnoses, prescribed medications, performed procedures, and any noted complications or adverse events.
In dissecting these records, the objective is to construct a timeline that demonstrates the progression or regression of your health, particularly focusing on the onset of the injuries you believe are due to malpractice. This analysis will look for inconsistencies, omissions, or direct evidence in the records that contradict the standard of care expected, linking the practitioner’s intervention to the harm suffered. You will likely need medical specialists who can identify subtleties within the records, offering interpretations based on medical standards.
Expert Testimony
Expert testimony is very important in unraveling the complexity of medical records and events. Experts, with their specialized knowledge and experience, can offer opinions that will establish the probability of your injuries being a result of negligence rather than a natural progression of a preexisting condition.
These experts will do things like analyze the sequence of medical interventions, the rationale behind them, and whether they were in keeping with standard protocols. They assess whether the actions were appropriate based on the preexisting condition, whether alternative treatments could have prevented injury, and if the intervention (or lack thereof) led to new health issues or exacerbated existing ones.
Crucially, experts need to be able to explain these technicalities in understandable terms, so the court can understand them and make a just decision. Medical experts need to be both experts in their field and also have courtroom experience. Malpractice lawyers in Maryland usually have access to a network of qualified experts to draw from, meaning that the first step in getting good expert testimony is working with an experienced and qualified attorney. For more information, click here.
Contrasting Outcomes with Similar Cases
To prove your case, it’s often effective to contrast your situation with outcomes of similar cases or general statistics of individuals with the same preexisting conditions. This approach involves presenting data or examples where patients with similar health backgrounds underwent comparable medical procedures but did not suffer the same negative consequences.
By demonstrating that your adverse outcome is an outlier rather than the norm, you reinforce the argument that it was not just your preexisting condition at play, but something distinct that occurred in your case. This discrepancy can suggest that there was an abnormality in the care provided to you.
Dissecting the Defendant’s Narrative
The defense’s strategy will often depend on firmly connecting the injury to the preexisting condition. They might argue that the damage was an inevitable consequence, regardless of medical intervention. Dissecting and countering this narrative is vital. This process is about deconstructing their argument with factual medical evidence that directly contradicts their assertions.
Your lawyers, with the help of medical experts, will need to delve into the specific details, such as the expected prognosis of your preexisting condition, the typical outcomes of the prescribed treatment, or the rarity of your injury in similar scenarios. The defense might downplay certain facts, but a sharp focus on detailed medical and situational variables can reveal the true story.
Only Work With Qualified Malpractice Lawyers in Maryland
Proving that your injuries resulted from medical malpractice and not a preexisting condition can be difficult and demands a thorough analysis of medical records, insightful application of expert testimonies, strategic comparisons to similar cases, and a methodical dissection of the defense’s narrative. It’s not easy to do, and that’s why it’s so crucial to choose only the most qualified and experienced lawyers to work on your medical malpractice case.