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Substandard Care Or Surgery

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When seeking a cure for an ailment or condition, patients often worry about success ratios, how long they will be out of work, and even who will drop them off and pick them up at the hospital these are common concerns. With the increasing faith millions of Americans are putting into the reliability of health care practitioners, receiving sub-standard care is generally at the bottom of the list of concerns. However, not receiving the right kind of treatment when there is a prevention method available is unacceptable.

Medical staff personnel are required to follow strict guidelines that regulate the legal stature of requirements involved in making sure every patient receives the best possible treatment by the administrating practitioner. These guidelines and providers ' ability or inability to adhere to them make possible the differentiation between appropriate medical care and medical malpractice.

Sub-standard care covers a variety of possible malpractices, each one important in its own regard. Some examples of sub-standard care include:
Improper or inconsistent monitoring while under the care of a health provider.
Incorrect diagnoses.
Erroneous examination of proper medical history documents.
Failure to adhere to policies related to drug history records, especially in cases wherein the intake of drugs may affect a procedure.
Over- or under-prescribing of medical drugs and supplies, including but not limited to pain-killing medications, oxygen, and skin ointments.
Outright abuse, which can be especially common in elder care.
Inexplicable negligence, such as leaving operating utensils inside of a patient after surgery.
Use of a lesser facility not equipped to properly conduct the needed surgery or procedure.

When sub-standard care occurs, the results can be devastating and even fatal. It is difficult to gauge just how sub-standard care will effect a given procedure, making it all the more important for health care providers to use the same caution when executing any type of care. For example, if a medical practitioner fails to realize that a patient is taking a certain medication and continues care without cutting the medication out of the patient's intake, the result could be a small allergic reaction resulting in a slight side effect. However, the same situation could unfold and result in death for another patient.

Medical malpractice is rampant and often unreported, but it should not be confused with patient expectations; not every medical professional is being negligent or performing malpractice if they do not spend as much time with you or produce the results that you have come to expect. That is to say, just because a patient expects a knee operation to result in him or her feeling like they are 20 years old again doesn't mean malpractice occurred. Instead, the instances where medical malpractice applies are those in which medical personnel act in a matter where they disregard the guidelines they swore to uphold as medical professionals, and provide less than the best possible care to their patients.

Patients have a legal right to assume that the level of care being provided to them by a medical professional meets a certain standard. When such a standard has not been met, the victims of this below-average care may be entitled to compensation for any damage that may have occurred. If a medical professional fails to provide a patient with the proper care, this is classified as medical malpractice.