Sedalia Medical Malpractice Attorney

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Medical malpractice claims can be challenging to prove and even harder to win. The attorney you work with must have in-depth experience in this particular area of law, a strong understanding of medical injuries, and a trusted network of medical specialists.

Injured by a doctor? Call us at (660) 722-4115 or contact our medical malpractice attorney in Sedalio, MO to seek justice for your injury!

Medical Malpractice Claims

At Kempton & Russell, we have decades of experience bringing medical malpractice claims against negligent doctors, hospitals, nurses, and other medical specialists. We treat each claim with the highest level of care, providing individualized solutions that reflect the unique situations of each client. You deserve nothing less than our utmost dedication and hard work.

How Do You Prove Medical Malpractice?

Medical malpractice is often characterized as an instance in which treatment from a medical professionals falls below the accepted standards of care or violates a patient’s rights. Many people may be victims of medical malpractice and not even realize that their injuries and suffering was a result of a doctor’s malpractice.

The following elements can indicate medical malpractice:

• A duty was owed to the patient
• That duty was not upheld
• The practice deviated from the medical standard
• These actions led to an injury to the patient.

In most cases, victims or the family of a victim of medical malpractice have up to two years from the date of their injury to file a claim. It may be difficult to tie your injury back to one specific date or incident. An attorney can help you understand the intricacies of a medical malpractice claim and can help you understand the specific nature of your case. Not only can a skilled attorney investigate your claim but they can help you understand your rights and opportunity for recovery.

Our medical malpractice lawyers can represent claims in Missouri such as:

• Hospital & Doctor Negligence: Inadequate staffing of nurses, LPNs and medical staff can result in poor screening of patients coupled with unqualified staff providing care, Misreading or misinterpreting X-ray results, Medication errors from misreading prescriptions, dispensing the wrong medicine, providing the incorrect dosage or ignoring allergic reactions
• Surgical Errors: Surgical errors can happen regardless of how complex an operation is or where the surgical site is. The operating room can present many risks to patients, including sharp instruments, potential for infection, and many other factors. It is critical that surgeons and staff exercise great care and precision before, during, and after the operation.
• Birth & Children's Surgical Injuries: Childbirth is a delicate procedure that must be handled with great care by doctors, nurses, and hospital staff. A newborn can suffer from life-changing injuries at any time - before, during or following childbirth. Children who undergo surgical procedures can also suffer from catastrophic injuries if a surgeon is negligent or careless during the operation.
• Anesthesia Errors: Anesthesia is what physicians use to control pain during a surgery or procedure using a medicine called anesthetics. It can help control breathing, blood pressure, blood flow, and heart rate. Anesthesia can be used to relax patients, block pain, make the patient sleepy or forgetful, or make you sleep before surgery. However, the dosage needed for each patient will vary. Anesthesiology is a precise science requiring doctors to take the patient’s medical history into account. When they make an error, the results can be disastrous.
• Nursing Malpractice: Similar to malpractice cases involving doctors, nursing malpractice occurs when a nurse fails to completely perform his or her medical duties that a normally competent nurse in the same situation would—and that failure harms the patient.

Examples of Medical Malpractice

Medical negligence, or medical malpractice, can take many forms. Depending on which medical professional caused the injury, medical negligence claims can be brought against hospitals, hospital staff, doctors, nurses, or other healthcare professionals. However, when someone suffers an injury in a hospital or after a medical procedure, they might not know what kind of claim to file. The following are some common examples of medical malpractice.

• Procedures Gone Wrong

  • Some cases of medical negligence are blatant errors, including amputating the wrong limb or performing a treatment on the wrong patient. However, not all medical procedures that go wrong will be the basis of a claim. Only when a doctor fails to exercise reasonable care will a person be able to sue for damages.

• Prescription Errors

  • This type of error can result in fatal or significant consequences. Whether it happens because a doctor fails to write down the correct dosage or type of medication or because whoever reads the prescription fills the wrong medicines, these kinds of mistakes could result in an allergic reaction or worse. For example, if a patient needs a type of drug to recover from an illness, but they are prescribed the wrong medication, the delay in receiving the correct treatment could worsen the condition to an extreme degree.

• Misdiagnosis

  • Sometimes physicians will fail to diagnose a problem another doctor in similar circumstances would have caught. If this happens, a person could sue for damages. However, if it’s an accident any reasonable, good doctor would make, you may not have a good case.

• Post-Surgical Infections

  • All hospitals and doctors do their best to minimize the potential for infection after surgery. However, post-surgical infections are incredibly real and scary problems. Unfortunately, the source of an infection is difficult to prove, meaning even when these infections happen to admitted patients, negligence is not automatic.

• Lack of Informed Consent / Medical Battery

  • Patients have a right to be fully informed of the consequences of a medical procedure in addition to the consequences of choosing to forgo it. If a doctor or staff member lies to a patient to secure their consent to perform a technique or surgery, this error can be both medical malpractice as well as medical battery. Informed consent means doctors have accurately explained procedures, medications, and associated risks that are more likely to occur. If the treatment resulted in an injury that was statistically so small your doctor didn’t mention it, he or she might not be on the line for negligence. Likewise, if a doctor suspects a person might be too emotionally fragile to handle the potential side effects of a life-saving treatment, he or she might leave out details. In cases such as these, it becomes harder to prove negligence.

How Long Do I Have to File a Medical Malpractice Claim?

Since medical malpractice injuries are not always discovered right away, the statute of limitations to file a medical malpractice claim works differently than other personal injury claims. According to Missouri Revised Statutes Section 516.105, you have two years from the date you were injured or in some cases, the date you discovered your injury to file a claim. If an injury victim is considered a minor under age of 18 at the time of their injury, they have until their 20th birthday to file their claim. The statute of limitations can be a complex topic, call our firm today to learn how this law may affect your case.

Sophisticated Advocacy for Medical Malpractice Victims

Litigating medical malpractice claims can be difficult because of the complexities of medical injuries, the tendency of jury bias, and the extensive resources necessary to investigate a claim. We respond to these obstacles with diligent fact finding and case preparations, pouring through volumes of medical records to identify what went wrong and evidence of medical liability. We also bring in the relevant medical specialists to validate your medical malpractice claim.

Once secure that important verification, we prepare your claim for trial. This proactive strategy provides us with important leverage in settlement negotiations. If a case cannot be settled with the desired outcome, you'll know that we are always ready to litigate for you.

Get Started on Your Case During a Free Consultation!

During this challenging time, we are more than your attorneys. We are your biggest advocates and allies, fighting with insurers to get you the highest possible settlement. Tell us more about your accident and your struggles. We are ready to listen.

Our office is conveniently located in Sedalia, right across from the courthouse. Weekend and evening consultations are available by appointment.

To get started, call us at (660) 722-4115!