All medical negligence claims can be categorized as follows:
- Wrong diagnosis
- Negligence affecting pregnancy and childbirth
- Wrong prescription or drug administration
- Errors during surgery
Wrong diagnosis: It is a leading type of error made by a physician, and the most commonly misdiagnosed illnesses are infections, tumors, blood clot, heart attack and heart diseases. The reason for this wrong diagnosis can be because the symptoms in the patients are not typical, but the consequence of it is life-threatening or fatal. The physician tends to lose valuable time treating the wrong condition.
Negligence affecting pregnancy and childbirth: The leading types of malpractice during pregnancy and childbirth is:
- Unexplained vaginal bleeding
- Unusually long labor and injury to mother and baby
- Hemorrhage
- Oversight during C section or during administering anesthesia
- Nerve injury to the baby during labor
- Premature babies
Wrong prescription or drug administration: These claims are also common and are due to medication errors. The cause is that the physician prescribes the wrong quantity, the wrong medication, the pharmacy gives out the wrong drugs, the caretaker administers the wrong amount. It is easy to wrongly administer medicines if anyone in the entire chain of drugs misses a decimal point the patient can be administered too much or too less.
Errors during surgery: It is not uncommon for mistakes to happen during surgery. The most common mistakes are damage to a nerve, failing to control bleeding, leaving something inside during surgery, like a sponge inside the patient, performing wrong operations or performing on the wrong part is all part of the medical negligence claims. Anesthesia-related negligence is also not uncommon.