Preparing to Start a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit
If you have been injured due to physician’s negligence and want to sue your doctor for medical malpractice, there is certain information will need to collect and review in order to file a medical malpractice lawsuit on your behalf:
- All Pertinent Medical RecordsIf your injuries were sustained because a physician or a member of the hospital staff made a mistake in treating you, the first thing to collect would be your medical and/or hospital records. Keep in mind that if you plan to sue the hospital for medical malpractice or bring an action against a private physician your prior medical history may come into play, since the defendant will want to claim that your injuries are pre-existing or your illness is due to another cause. Defendants’ attorneys will do everything in their power to shift the blame to another source, and use of your medical history is often how they win cases. Our attorneys spend hours going over voluminous medical records to make sure they have a solid argument as to why the injuries caused by doctor’s negligence are not pre-existing or minor.
- Be Honest and Forthcoming with us about Your Medical History
We at Duffy & Duffy pride ourselves on our attorney/client relationship and the level of respect and trust that goes into it. Information shared within that relationship is legally protected as “attorney client privileged.” It is vital, as we prepare to file your medical malpractice lawsuit, that there’d be no surprises that may defeat the case later on.Unfortunately, it is not always possible to get all of the client’s pertinent prior medical records prior to starting suit. Time is off the essence and oftentimes physicians and their offices do not timely reply to request for records, or the doctor has moved to another state, or records cannot be found. However, if you had a history of lymphoma and the case involves failure to diagnose cancer, or if you had a prior heart attack and the case deals with failure to diagnose a heart condition, knowing all the facts will help our attorneys better prepare for the challenges facing them in court. - Keep Accurate RecordsIt is a well-known fact that a medical malpractice case can take several years to come to trial. Time moves on and people often forget important details concerning their treatment, such as names of doctors, dates of service, diagnoses given, etc. Making notes of dates, names, bill amounts and things of that nature will help you prepare better for your examination under oath.
Defense counsel may spend several hours deposing you about the details of your treatment which caused you for sue doctor for medical malpractice. Our attorney will work with you to get you thoroughly ready to testify, and having a good record or diary will assist him in delineating the sequence of events leading to the lawsuit and what happened since.
- Letters from Employers
If you have been unable to work following your injury, our lawyer will need to obtain a copy of your employment/attendance records to argue that you have been disabled due to the medical malpractice and unable to work. Record of time out of work, as well as your prior 1099s or w 2 forms will assist the economist working with our firm to calculate your lost wages, both past and future. We will then be able to claim these monetary damages in your medical malpractice lawsuit. - Witness Information
Finally, having a witness to medical malpractice committed by the doctor or hospital is very important when starting a lawsuit. A witness could be the nurse who was present when the doctor treated you, a relative who was with you in the room when the physician made a mistake or a surgeon’s assistant who was present during faulty operation. Some of these witnesses will have to be subpoenaed to testify but our lawyers are well trained in taking strong effective depositions to help establish fault on the part of the defendant.
Call our firm today at 516-394-4200 to meet with one of our highly qualified attorneys to find out if we can file a medical malpractice lawsuit on your behalf.
