Arizona Medical Malpractice Attorney

Medical professionals like doctors and nurses are supposed to help you when you are ill or injured. In some instances, you literally put your life in the hands of healthcare professionals. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 82.3% of adults and 91% of children visited a doctor or other healthcare professional in 2021. This goes to show you how vital healthcare providers are to society.

So what happens when the same people we trust to treat us drop the ball?

When a medical professional makes an error or treats you in a manner that’s unacceptable in the medical field, it can lead to serious long-term health issues, significant medical bills, job loss, decreased quality of life, a shorter life expectancy, or in the worst-case scenario, death.

Medical malpractice is a complex topic that’s often overwhelming for injured victims and their families. For individuals affected by the negligent actions of doctors or other medical professionals, navigating the legal process and understanding what constitutes medical malpractice can be challenging. That’s where the expertise, experience, and knowledge of a medical malpractice attorney in Arizona become essential.

At Gerber Injury Law, our Arizona-based legal team will help you understand the intricacies of medical malpractice, including the different types, how it can occur, your legal rights, and how a medical malpractice lawyer from Arizona can help. Our lawyers are ready to evaluate your case and answer any questions you may have.

We have a proven record of success, and our clients can attest to that.

Call 623-486-8300 now to schedule your free, confidential consultation. Let us protect your rights and interests.

Why Clients Choose Our Arizona Medical Malpractice Lawyers

• Gerber Injury Law doesn’t settle for lowball offers that don’t represent the true value of our clients’ damages. If out-of-court negotiations don’t work out, we are ready to take medical malpractice cases to court.
• We have over 20 years of experience handling personal injury cases in Arizona. Our lawyers are compassionate about what they do and are ready to help you through this difficult time.
• Our Arizona law firm charges zero upfront fees to injured victims. This means you don’t have to worry about attorney fees when contacting us. We only get paid once you secure compensation for your medical malpractice case.
• We have earned a reputation as one of the most successful firms in Arizona, having recovered over $100 million for plaintiffs since 2001.

What Is Medical Malpractice?

Medical malpractice refers to any “act or omission by a physician during the treatment of a patient that deviates from accepted norms of practice in the medical community and causes an injury to the patient.” It is a subset of tort law that focuses on professional negligence in the medical field.

An example of medical malpractice is when a surgeon operates on the wrong site. Take, for instance, a surgeon who amputates the wrong arm, resulting in a patient losing both arms to save their life.

How Common Is Medical Malpractice in Arizona?

To understand medical malpractice, we must first understand how prevalent this form of negligence by medical professionals and healthcare facilities is in the U.S. Here are some key statistics about medical malpractice:

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) receives over 100,000 reports yearly related to suspected medication errors.
• 41% of adults in the U.S. have suffered a medical error in their own care or watched it happen to someone they cared about.
• More than 7 million Americans are impacted by medication errors
• Every year, 7,000 to 9,000 people die in the U.S. due to medication errors.
• About 4,000 surgical errors occur yearly in the U.S., with operations on incorrect body parts being a common source of these errors.
• Roughly 1 in 18 patients visiting U.S. emergency rooms are misdiagnosed yearly.
• Roughly 40,000 to 80,000 people die each year due to misdiagnosis complications.

Arizona isn’t immune to medical malpractice. According to Diederich Healthcare, an aggregate of $77,744,000 was paid out in 2020 in Arizona medical malpractice cases. It is important to note that not all cases result in payouts. Many medical malpractice cases go unreported or are settled out of court.

Common Types of Medical Malpractice in Arizona

There are many types of medical malpractice, mainly because each case is unique. Here are some of the most common types of medical malpractice that our Arizona attorneys handle:

Anesthesiology Mistakes

The balance of drugs needed to put a patient under during an operation or surgery is delicate. For this reason, anesthesiologists need to make precise dose calculations. Some of the common forms of anesthesia errors include:

• Negligent monitoring: Occurs when a patient passes on due to an anesthesiologist’s inattention.
• Wrong medication: Occurs when a patient suffers injuries or dies due to improperly tested or monitored medication errors.
• Overdose: Occurs when an anesthesiologist miscalculates a patient’s dosage or delivers a drug incorrectly.
• Mid-surgery awakening: Occurs when a miscalculation of the dosage or delivery method leads to a patient waking up during a procedure.

Surgical Errors

Surgeons don’t enter operating rooms intending to harm patients. Unfortunately, mistakes happen. When a surgeon makes a mistake during surgery, it’s the patient who suffers. Some of the common surgical errors in Arizona include:

• Surgery in the wrong location
• Performing the wrong surgery
• Surgery room misconduct
• Retained foreign bodies, such as surgical sponges and towels
• Unnecessary surgeries
• Pre or post-operative mistakes, such as infections
• Wrong patient surgery

Failure To Diagnose

This type of medical malpractice happens when a doctor fails to take appropriate steps to determine a patient’s medical problem. Here, a doctor fails to properly detect or diagnose an existing condition. Failure to diagnose a medical condition may lead to dangerous, even fatal, consequences for the patient. This may happen if a doctor fails to ask critical questions or if they disregard sending blood tests to the lab.

An example of this type of malpractice is if your doctor fails to diagnose your appendicitis after running tests, ignoring critical symptoms of your condition, which consequently leads to your appendix bursting. In such a scenario, your personal injury lawyer in Arizona may prove and hold the doctor liable for your injuries.

Medication Errors

Prescribing incorrect medications or wrong dosages to patients in Arizona may set them on a course that may not likely lead to the remission of their symptoms. Some of the mistakes that may lead to these errors include:

• Mislabeling
• Miscommunication
• Dangerous pharmaceutical mixtures
• Improper consultation

Other common types of medical malpractice cases that our Arizona personal injury attorneys handle include:

• Dental malpractice
• Nursing home abuse
• Cancer misdiagnosis
• Birth injuries
• Delayed diagnosis
• Failure to prevent infections
• ​​Emergency room malpractice
• Defective medical products
• Lack of informed consent
• Unsanitary tools or premises
• Failure to refer
• Prematurely discharging a patient

An incompetent or negligent medical professional could derail a patient’s treatment or recovery process in many different ways. Any negligent action or omission that another doctor wouldn’t have committed under similar circumstances, resulting in a patient’s injury or death, constitutes medical malpractice.

If you suspect any type of medical malpractice, contact our medical malpractice attorneys in Arizona to discuss your legal options. Our legal team will conduct a comprehensive investigation to determine whether a medical professional’s or a healthcare facility’s negligent actions — or failure to act — caused your injury or your loved one’s demise.

What Types of Injuries Occur Due to Medical Malpractice?

Some of the common catastrophic injuries that victims in Arizona face include:

• Cerebral palsy
• Spinal cord injuries
• Traumatic brain injuries
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• Eye injuries
• Organ damage, such as liver or kidney
• Joint and limb injuries
• Neck injuries
• Wrongful death

Arizona Medical Malpractice Laws

Every state has its own set of medical malpractice laws in place, as does Arizona. It’s crucial that victims of medical negligence understand these laws and how they could affect their personal injury cases. Knowing these laws can help injured victims and their families get a better idea of how to proceed with their cases.

Statute of Limitations

For claims involving medical misconduct in Arizona, patients have only two years from the date of injury — typically the date of treatment or injury — to file claims. For patients under the age of 18, the statute of limitations doesn’t commence until they turn 18 years old.

If you lose a loved one due to medical malfeasance, the law allows immediate family members or the decedent’s estate to file a wrongful death claim in Arizona within two years from the date of death.

The Comparative Negligence Doctrine

The state of Arizona applies the comparative negligence doctrine when assigning fault in medical malpractice claims, implying that a patient’s recovery is reduced by their share of the blame. So, if the defendant claims that the patient was partly at fault for their injury, the court may reduce compensation for damages based on their percentage of fault.

Damage Caps

Arizona is one of the few states with no statutory limits or caps on damage awards. The state forbids any caps on compensation in cases involving wrongful death or negligence. This presents Arizona plaintiffs dealing with medical malpractice cases with a favorable legal climate.

No Pre-Claims Filing Measures

Unlike most other states, Arizona doesn’t require injured victims or their families to initiate any form of pre-trial resolution with the liable parties, whether through mediation or arbitration.

Medical Expert Affidavit

Under Arizona law, plaintiffs must provide a medical expert affidavit signed by a medical expert in the same field as the defendant stating they believe there are grounds for a tort claim. The expert should provide a preliminary professional opinion detailing how the defendant deviated from acceptable medical standards of care in the given medical specialty, be it neurosurgery, pediatric orthopedics, or gynecologic oncology.

At Gerber Injury Law, our legal team has in-depth knowledge of all laws pertaining to medical malpractice cases. We will help you understand how these laws may affect your case as you rest and recover. Our compassionate lawyers will always treat you like family throughout this process.

Who Is Liable in a Medical Malpractice Claim in Arizona?

Generally, when patients suffer injuries due to medical misconduct, they mostly point fingers at their doctor. The term “doctor” may refer to a medical specialist, a family physician, or a general practitioner. Most medical claims are filed against doctors responsible for patients’ care who end up harming them due to errors like incorrect or delayed diagnosis.

Some of the doctors who may be liable for medical malpractice include:

• General practitioners (GP): They are the first line of defense when patients visit hospitals due to various health issues.
• Obstetricians and gynecologists: These medical professionals specialize in obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN). They typically care for pregnant women and their babies. Birth injury claims are common claims that mothers and their loved ones file against these doctors.
• Emergency room physicians: The ER is a chaotic and taxing work environment. Still, ER doctors are expected to perform at their best, maintaining high standards of care to help injured victims, such as those involved in car accidents.
• Surgeons: Surgery entails different specialties in the medical field, including appendectomy, carotid endarterectomy, hemorrhoidectomy, and mastectomy. Despite these specialists’ extensive training, surgical errors still happen, resulting in medical malpractice claims.
• Psychiatrists: Misdiagnosing or failing to diagnose a mental health problem may exacerbate a disorder, which may be grounds for a psychiatric negligence claim.

Other practitioners considered doctors who may be liable in medical malpractice claims include dentists, chiropractors, naturopaths, optometrists, podiatrists, neurologists, ophthalmologists, plastic surgeons, oncologists, and cardiologists.

In some instances, doctors may not share the blame — or partly share it — for a medical malpractice incident. The reality is that other healthcare providers may be liable for your injuries. Additional parties who may be at fault include:

• Nurses: Nurses, as well as technicians and medical assistants, must undergo specialized training to care for patients. Any deviation from acceptable medical standards makes them liable for damages.
• Physical therapists: These professionals help patients regain their strength and mobility in the aftermath of an injury or during the recovery phase after surgery. Negligence on their part can result in severe, catastrophic injuries.
• Pharmacists: It’s the responsibility of pharmacists to give patients drugs that will make them feel better — not worse. Actions such as failing to advise patients about potential risks, dispensing the wrong drugs, and filling out incorrect dosages may endanger the well-being of patients.
• Midwives: They assist with labor, delivery, and caring for babies and mothers after birth. Midwives may be liable if their actions lead to injuries to the mother or baby during childbirth.

Medical malpractice claims aren’t only filed against medical professionals. There are instances when medical organizations may be defendants in malpractice claims. Such organizations include:

• Hospitals
• Rehabilitation and physical therapy centers
• Medical clinics
• Nursing homes
• Pharmaceutical companies

As seen above, there are many parties that may be liable in medical malpractice cases. For this reason, it’s best to get in touch with an experienced medical malpractice attorney in Arizona to evaluate your case and help you determine who is to blame for your injuries. Gerber Injury Law is ready to look into your case and piece together what happened to determine who may be responsible for you or your loved one’s injuries and ensure they are held accountable for their wrongful conduct.

How To Prove Medical Malpractice

Proving medical malpractice in Arizona can be a complex and challenging task. To establish a valid claim, a patient must demonstrate that the medical professional or facility failed to exercise the acceptable standard of care required of them, which in turn led to their injury. In other words, the claimant bears the burden of establishing certain legal elements. This is done by providing a preponderance of the evidence, which means that the presented evidence must weigh in favor of the patient rather than the defendant, be it a doctor, nurse, or hospital.

As with any other type of personal injury case, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant’s negligence was directly linked to their injuries.

Suppose you took your son to the hospital for treatment after they suffered a deep cut on their arm during a sporting event. Unfortunately, the doctor used contaminated tools to stitch the cut, leading to a severe infection. The infection necessitates the amputation of his arm to save his life. Using this example, let’s see how an attorney will prove the four elements of negligence for a successful claim.

Duty

To qualify for compensation, you must first prove the existence of a doctor-patient relationship. Once such a relationship is established, the doctor owes the patient a duty of care. This duty requires them to act like any other healthcare provider under similar circumstances. They must abide by standard medical guidelines widely accepted in their specialty.

In the above example, you drove your son to the hospital, checked them in, and submitted personal information at the reception. A doctor ordered a medical exam to understand the severity of the injury on your son’s wounded arm. Such a scenario establishes a doctor-patient relationship, requiring the doctor to act as any other doctor would when dealing with an arm injury.

Breach

Once a duty of care is established, the doctor must follow accepted medical standards while treating your son’s arm. A breach of that duty happens when they disregard or ignore standard procedures that other physicians wouldn’t have ignored under similar circumstances.

Referring to the example, no doctor should use contaminated or unsterilized tools to treat patients. By using a contaminated tool to stitch your son’s wound, they violated acceptable medical standards, consequently breaching their duty of care.

Injury

To have a valid medical malpractice claim in Arizona, you must prove that you suffered an injury due to the negligent actions of a healthcare provider. In this case, your son got an avoidable infection that led to the amputation of his arm. Proving your case in this scenario requires establishing a direct link between the doctor’s conduct — using contaminated tools — and your son’s infection and amputation.

Damages

Your Arizona medical malpractice attorney must prove that the patient — in this case, your son — suffered damages due to the doctor’s negligence. Some of the damages that may be available in malpractice claims include medical bills, travel costs, and pain and suffering.

For a healthcare provider to be found negligent in a tort claim, your medical malpractice attorney in Arizona must show that their conduct fell below acceptable standards in the medical field. To establish these standards in court, an expert medical witness must testify, proving the defendant violated the accepted standard of medical care.

What Sort of Damages Can I Recover After a Medical Malpractice Claim in Arizona?

In medical malpractice claims, “damages” are awarded to compensate patients and their families for harm done. Generally, there are two main types of damages that victims of medical malpractice get in Arizona: economic and non-economic damages.

Economic Damages

Also called special damages, these reimburse victims for financial costs related to the medical malpractice case. They mainly cover medical expenses related to injuries sustained after the doctor’s misconduct.

Economic damages have clear price tags or estimates that can be found in documents like bills, receipts, and invoices. Common types of these damages include:

• Medical expenses, including future medical expenses
• Loss of earning capacity
• Lost income
• Household services

Non-Economic Damages

Also known as general damages, these are harder to quantify in dollar amounts since they are primarily subjective, like pain and suffering. In truth, you can’t feel someone else’s pain unless you are in their shoes, which is definitely impossible. This is why these damages are considered subjective and non-monetary.

Common examples of non-economic damages available in medical malpractice claims include:

• Loss of consortium
• Pain and suffering
• Reduced quality of life
• Reputational damage
• Humiliation
• Loss of society and companionship
• Inconvenience

Punitive Damages

In rare cases, punitive damages are awarded in medical malpractice claims. They are awarded in egregious situations and are meant to punish defendants and deter them from repeating similar actions.

In August 2022, the Arizona Supreme Court issued a statement clarifying standards for seeking punitive damage awards in Swift Transportation v. Carman. The judges reiterated: “Absent proof of the intent to cause harm or that the defendant acted out of spite or ill will, outrageous conduct will always be required to sustain a claim for punitive damages in negligence cases. The distinction between ordinary or even gross negligence and the conduct that permits punitive damages is critical. Indeed, it will be only the rare negligence case that meets this standard.”

How Can Gerber Injury Law Help With a Medical Malpractice Claim?

An Arizona medical malpractice attorney can be a valuable resource for patients affected by this form of malpractice. At Gerber Injury Law, our attorneys represent injured victims who suffer harm due to negligent medical care. Here are some of the reasons why you should hire our Arizona law firm:

Evaluate Your Case

At Gerber Injury Law, our legal team can review your medical malpractice case and determine whether you have legal grounds to file a claim. We will evaluate all pieces of evidence, including expert opinions and medical records, to establish whether the healthcare provider breached their duty of care.

Gather Evidence

Our experienced legal team will gather, analyze, and present evidence to support your Arizona personal injury case. This may include:

• Expert witness testimony
• Medical records
• Video evidence
• Hospital records
• Witness statements
• Incorrect prescriptions
• Diagnostic test results, including MRI scans, CT scans, X-rays, and PET scans
• Patient’s testimony
• Evidence of physical injury

Negotiate With Claims Adjusters

When you file a medical malpractice claim, the defendant’s insurance company will reach out to settle the case out of court. You should keep your guard up when they do so. Remember, regardless of how friendly or empathetic insurance representatives seem, their main objective is to reduce their employer’s (the insurance company’s) liability.

This is why you need the help of a reliable personal injury attorney based in Arizona to help you with your claim. At Gerber Injury Law, our lawyers will handle these negotiations on your behalf, aggressively pushing for the best possible compensation for your damages. We won’t accept anything that doesn’t represent the true value of your claim.

Represent You in Court

If the insurance company offers a low settlement figure, our Arizona-based legal team is ready to go to trial and prove how the defendant’s actions have affected your life. Our attorneys will present evidence, cross-examine witnesses, and argue on your behalf to convince the jury that you deserve fair compensation for your injuries.

At Gerber Injury Law, our medical malpractice lawyers are ready to guide and support you throughout the claims process. We work hard to earn the trust and respect of our clients. Let us help you with your case.

Contact Our Arizona Medical Malpractice Lawyers Today

The Arizona medical malpractice attorneys at Gerber Injury Law work hard to help patients injured due to medical malpractice get the justice and compensation they deserve. If you or a loved one has sustained injuries due to a doctor’s negligent actions or inactions, talk to an experienced personal injury lawyer immediately.

Our legal team is ready to help navigate Arizona’s medical malpractice statutes. We are ready to go up against doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies to shed light on what happened and whether negligence led to your injury. Call 623-486-8300 now to schedule a medical malpractice review. We are available 24/7.