Medical Malpractice Please help!! Medical neg/malpractice please help!!

[mbirdman64]

I have been battling a medical problem diagnosed as Pancreatitisin the ER since Nov 2008.I had been receiving narcotic pain medication for my severe pain throughout this ordeal. I was referred to the University of Michigan and all they could come up with was a spinal cord compression. The back surgeon I saw does not believe that is the cause of the pain. Back to my question. The narcotic pain medication was being prescribed and monitored by my primary doctor in Michigan and she started me out at 30mg and then increased it to 60mg twice a day. My husband and family said I was completely out of it for 2 weeks but they thought it was from another pill that I had just started and it made me slightly out of it when I had been on it before, but then my doctor finally increased it to 90mg a day. I took the increased dose approx 3 days and ended up almost dying(I actually did-I had to be revived twice) from an accidental overdose. I had to be resuscitated by the ambulance people and ER. My doctor had even prescribed 2 more narcotics for break through pain that I fortunately never took one of them. The doctor in the ER room that I was taken to by ambulance said if I had taken the other pills, I definately would not have survived and he could not understand why she did not raise the doses slightly instead of 30mg at a time. I imagine I could never get that doctor to admit he stated that. I still have severe pain and the only thing that helps most of it, is a shot, but I can no longer get them in the ER, and now I am scared to take anything else for pain except that. I am wondering if there is anything that can be done for my pain and suffering. Ending up in the hospital and almost dying and going through all of that? Please help!!! I do not think it is fair if there is nothing I can do about this..It seems as though my primary dr only wanted to keep me on more pain meds and not continue to fight to find the actual problems. Yes, I needed pain help, what I am going through is severe pain, however, I trusted her not to kill me. I went through alot and so did my husband and family.

It seems like any legal person I have contacted said its really not a good case. Why? Because no one cares anymore and it might not be a BIG MONEY case? I just do not think it is fair that these drs can just get away with anything anymore. Isn't there any legal person out there that cares about what happens to people anymore.

Now, this dr is planning on leaving the state soon. What do I do now? I went through all this plus now I am banned from any narcotic pain meds at the ER because of my having to keep going there for help. Not because I am a drug addict. I recently fell and hit my head and back and went to the ER and I was only able to receive mild pain relief. I think this is totally unfair. To say nothing about all the time since the time of the overdose, I have felt very little pain relief.

Please someone help.

Thank you.

 

[army judge]

If you believe the physician to be guilty of malpractice, you can contact the state medical association and file a complaint.

If attorneys, who make a great income off of medical negligence cases aren't willing to take your case, your case isn't as solid as you believe it to be.

Potential plaintiffs generally believe their cases are better than they actually are. Think about it, attorneys would snap your case up in a heartbeat if it was as solid as you believe. That is how they get paid and make money. You get paid, they get paid. Anyway, I hope you get better soon.


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[Toddster]

Basics of Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice consists of three elements that must be present. There first must be a violation of the "standard of care." That is usually considered the care any other reasonable physician would render in the same circumstances (type of diagnoses, areas, specialty etc etc). The second issue is that this violation of the standard of care has to be the proximate cause of the damage. (I'll come back to this). The last is that there has to be some damage (death, dismemberment, disability, etc.).

That second element is often difficult as a doctor could give you the totally wrong medication and you might have say a heart attack....but if that wrong drug (or the absence of the right one) wasn't THE cause of the heart attack....then it is not malpractice.

In your case I think you'd have a hard time showing that you have any permanent damage from the incident. What are your concrete damages (being inconvenienced or "almost killed" doesn't really mean much)? Pain killers often cause sedation and without knowing what this other medicine was it is hard to say if the doctor violated the standard of care. So it sounds like you're missing the elements of a malpractice case. And without a large potential award (meaning large damage was done to you) most attorneys aren't going to take a case for the missed wages and nebulous emotional suffering you had from what may not have even been a violation of the standard of care.

As a previous poster commented you could file a complaint with the state medical board who will investigate (if they find the claim/issue credible) if the MD did Rx the medications inappropriately. The MD then may be "punished" in some way if found to have acted inappropriately. However you will not be compensated from this process.

I'm not a lawyer so this is not legal advice. However I'm an expert with some experience in medical malpractice.