Chicago Medical Malpractice Law Blog

If you're considering a medical malpractice claim, you may want to act reasonably quickly. Each state has a statute of limitations specifying how much time you have to file a malpractice action. You'll be best-served by seeing legal counsel with plenty of time to spare. In Illinois, a case based on hospital negligence has to be filed within the time specified in the statute of limitations or it risks being dismissed.

The reported case is from another state but it illustrates a general principle about the medical malpractice statute of limitations applicable in Illinois. It's called the 'continuous treatment rule'. In this case, a man sued for hospital negligence based on serious injuries supposedly caused when a hospital worker damaged his arm and shoulder while improperly pulling him up in bed. The negligent errors of an employee are legally considered to be hospital errors.

When a person is ill or injured, the response is often to turn to the Illinois medical community for assistance in treating the issue and returning to one's normal activities. We place a great deal of trust in the competence and ethics of the people and institutions within our healthcare system. When that system fails us, many lose faith in the American healthcare system. One recently filed medical malpractice lawsuit demonstrates one family's efforts to prove that hospital negligence caused them a great deal of pain and anguish.

The lawsuit centers on the experience of a 66-year-old man who sought hospital treatment in 2010 for a painful sore. He was diagnosed with perirectal abscess and cellulitis, and told medical workers that he was experiencing pain at a level of 10 on a one to 10 scale. A surgeon was consulted by phone, and a determination was made that there was no immediate need for surgical intervention. The patient was given a painkiller and antibiotics, and told to return home for rest and frequent sitz baths.

Whenever someone is afflicted with a serious disease or an adverse medical condition, one of the major fears for that patient is medical bills -- and for good reason. Sure, we all fear a medical mistake dramatically altering our lives; but that's only a possibility. Medical bills, meanwhile, are an inevitability. To fight off certain conditions, a number of procedures and medical protocols (all of which are very expensive) must occur.

Though you may be insured, that will not stop bills that reach into the thousands of dollars (sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars). That's why many medical analysts are asking doctors to be conservative when taking a course of action that involves unnecessary medical procedures which, likely, will do nothing other than protect them in case of a diagnosis mistake.

It is a tech-savvy era that we live in; and with the proliferation of complex gadgets and programs that play critical roles in our lives, it is no surprise that the medical industry has been at the forefront of creating incredible pieces of technology. The aim of these new tools is to limit medical errors and increase efficiency of diagnosing a malady or performing a procedure.

However, that is not the only thing that these new pieces of equipment will bring to the table. They will complicate medical malpractice cases and could result in devastating medical errors that go unnoticed. In terms of the latter, imagine getting a prescription that is automatically chosen and filled out by a network of computers. With little human oversight, a clerical error could have you taking medicine that does nothing to cure your disease or condition.