Woodbridge Medical Malpractice Attorneys

If you or someone you love is injured at the hands of a doctor or medical professional and you reside in Woodbridge, you should immediately seek the advice of Woodbridge medical malpractice attorneys. In New Jersey, you typically have only two years from the date of injury to file a malpractice claim. Two years can fly by when you suffer an injury and are reeling from the physical, emotional, and financial consequences. You don’t want to miss out on your chance to seek the compensation you deserve. Contact our med mal lawyers in Woodbridge, NJ, today.

What Is Medical Malpractice?

Medical malpractice occurs when a doctor, hospital, or another healthcare provider, through a negligent action or omission, causes injury to a patient. Legally, medical malpractice or medical negligence is a cause of action in a lawsuit filed by an injured plaintiff against the negligent medical provider. In other words, a medical malpractice lawsuit holds healthcare professionals liable for the injuries caused by their negligent conduct.

Generally, for an action or omission to be considered malpractice, the physician or other healthcare provider must have deviated from the accepted standards of medical practice.

Types of Medical Malpractice Cases Our Lawyers Handle

At O’Connor, Parsons, Lane & Noble, most of our practice is dedicated to medical malpractice. Below are several types of med mal cases our New Jersey medical malpractice lawyers can help you with.

Obstetrical and Delivery Mistakes

An obstetrician (OB) monitors your pregnancy and safely delivers your baby. Unfortunately, negligence and OB errors are not uncommon and can lead to some of the most devastating injuries to mom and child. Negligent conduct, including unsafe delivery techniques, lack of prenatal testing, and delayed diagnosis and treatment, can lead to significant injury. If you believe poor oversight, lack of communication, improper training, or any other negligence led to an injury to your child, contact us.

OB and delivery mistakes are some of the worst kinds of malpractice. Our firm helped a client receive the largest med-mal verdict of its kind in New Jersey. Specifically, we successfully proved that our client’s doctor failed to disclose her unborn child’s serious genetic defect, which, among other terrible consequences, resulted in the child’s around-the-clock care and shortened life expectancy. Our client was awarded $28 million in compensation.

Emergency Room

It is no secret that many emergency rooms throughout the state and country are understaffed and overcrowded. Emergency room physicians, nurses, and other medical staff are often moving at too fast of a pace and are pushed to see more patients in much less time. On the other side of the coin, understaffing and overcrowding can delay treatment, resulting in severe injury or death. Sadly, the ER environment can lead to malpractice involving:

Charting errors,
Medication mistakes,
Inadequate patient monitoring, and
Incorrect diagnoses.

An error in the ER can quickly snowball into severe long-term injury.

Urgent Care

The emergence and popularity of urgent care facilities have grown astronomically over the last decade. That increase in acute care facilities has also increased the prevalence of medical malpractice claims against the facility, doctors, and medical staff operating the clinic.

There are several reasons for urgent care med mal claims, including:

Inadequate training and staffing,
Lack of safety measures,
Insufficient physician oversight,
Poorly maintained or functioning equipment, and
Lack of staff emergency preparedness.

Urgent care malpractice can be as severe as emergency room or surgical malpractice.

Orthopedic Surgical Errors

Fractured bones, dislocations, torn tendons, and damaged joints are all orthopedic injuries that can be the result of a car accident, sports trauma, or violence. Common types of orthopedic malpractice include:

Inserting defective or recalled medical devices,
Wrong-site surgery,
Post-operative infections, and
Significant surgical errors.

Orthopedic care is often intricate and requires surgical intervention and extensive rehabilitation because these errors happen, and doctors should be held accountable for their mistakes or negligence.

Medication Errors

Medication and prescription drug errors can be just as catastrophic as any other type of malpractice. Some common examples include:

Prescribing the incorrect medication,
Giving the wrong medication,
Administering the incorrect dose,
Medication mislabeling,
Prescribing multiple medications with known negative interactions, and
Administering medication to a patient that is knowingly allergic.

If you or a loved one was the victim of a medication error and suffered an injury, you may be entitled to compensation.

Statutes of Limitations for Medical Malpractice in New Jersey

A statute of limitations refers to the period in which you must bring specific legal actions. They exist in criminal and civil cases and can vary among states and case types. In New Jersey, you typically have only two years from the date of your injury to file a med-mal lawsuit.

If you did not immediately discover your injury, the two-year clock does not begin to tick until the date you learned of the injury or should have known about it. In other words, a malpractice injury is sometimes apparent, such as a surgeon performing foot surgery on the wrong foot. But often, the malpractice and resulting damage are much less noticeable. If you do not learn about the mistake until a few years later, the clock will only start running at that time.

No matter when the clock starts ticking, if you miss that two-year window, you may lose your ability to seek compensation. Two years can go by quickly, especially if you are dealing with severe medical conditions that require frequent and extensive medical treatment.

If you have that nagging feeling that something went wrong and your doctor made a mistake, don’t ignore it. Meet with one of our experienced Woodbridge medical malpractice attorneys to review your case.

Who Can Be Held Liable for Medical Malpractice?

When most people hear medical malpractice, their first inclination is to assume a doctor has messed up. However, doctors are not the only possible defendants in medical malpractice lawsuits. It may be another medical professional or several potential defendants in your case.

Any healthcare provider who owed you a duty of care and failed to uphold that duty can be liable for the injury and harm you endured. Potentially liable defendants in your lawsuit might include:

Doctors,
Nurses,
Hospitals,
Therapists,
Technicians,
Chiropractors,
Aides,
Optometrists,
Laboratories,
Pharmacists, and
Outpatient medical facilities.

An experienced attorney will help you investigate all potentially liable parties.