Medical Malpractice Attorneys

Bronx, Brooklyn, Long Island, Queens, Manhattan, New York City, NY

Emergency Room Errors

 

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. Medical malpractice is taking place quite frequently in the one place people go when they desperately need urgent medical attention: Emergency Rooms.

 

Research shows that almost 52% of ER-related malpractice lawsuits involved misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, or failure to diagnose.

 

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 ER patients. For this reason, some patients are waiting 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 get to all of the patients in a timely manner.

 

Emergency rooms can be a very stressful work environment for doctors and their staff as some ERs do not even have the necessary equipment to provide patients the proper care.

 

ER Problems
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've 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 errors are:

• Late or wrong diagnosis
• Failure 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

 

 

Just because emergency rooms can be extremely busy, even chaotic places to receive medical care, that is not a valid reason to provide substandard medical care to ER patients. Failing to get and review thorough medical histories, failing to do adequate testing and failing to provide proper treatment to a patient are inexcusable emergency room errors that happen every day in our country. A trip to the ER should save your life, not jeopardize it.

 

If you or a loved one has suffered or died due to medical malpractice that occurred in an emergency room in New York or NYC including Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Long Island, or Queens, please contact the malpractice lawyers at the Law Offices of Silberstein Awad & Miklos.

 

 

 

Silberstein, Awad & Miklos, P.C.
Call Us Toll Free
1.877. ASK 4 SAM