Glick Law Firm, P.A.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the number of people dying from medical malpractice each year in the United States is growing. Medical malpractice deaths have become the third leading cause of death in the United States according to JAMA, after heart disease and cancer. Malpractice occurs frequently and patients are treated inadequately, especially in our nation's emergency rooms.

Emergency rooms are designed to treat a large number of people with a wide range of medical problems ranging from common ailments, such as the flu, to life-threatening injuries, such as gunshot wounds and open head injuries. We tend to believe that if we go to an ER or are taken to one by an ambulance, we will be evaluated fairly quickly and be seen by an experienced ER physician and ER staff. That is not always the case.

Even though ER staff are trained to work in a fast-paced environment and treat patients efficiently, our nation's ER's have become busier and busier, and even the most highly-trained ER specialists cannot keep up with the demands of the patients.

For this reason, some patients wait several hours to be seen. Understaffed ERs are also a huge problem in this country; sometimes there simply are not enough nurses and doctors in the ER to treat all of the patients in a timely manner.

Due to the nature of some ER patients' injuries and illnesses, ER mistakes can cause serious injury and even death. Some patients get so frustrated with the long wait they have experienced at an ER that they may just leave without having been evaluated by a doctor at all. The patient's frustration and inability to wait any longer can certainly lead to further sickness after they leave the ER.

The most common types of emergency room errors are:

• Late or wrong diagnosis
• Filure to fully evaluate/treat a patient's condition
• Prescribing incorrect medication
• Faulty or incomplete laboratory testing
• Contaminated blood transfusions
• Failure to adequately monitor a patient while in the ER
• Not getting a complete medical history/drug allergy information

An experienced medical malpractice attorney such as the attorneys at the Glick Law Firm, P.A. in Boca Raton, Florida will advise you regarding your emergency room medical malpractice claim. Please call or email the Glick Law Firm, serving clients in Boca Raton, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, today to schedule your free initial consultation.