About Our Medical Malpractice Law Firm in Clinton, SC
Davis and his fellow attorneys at Joye Law Firm are committed to helping people in Laurens County deal with complicated legal issues. When people in Clinton visit the doctor or are admitted to the hospital, they expect that the medical care they receive will address their condition and help them improve. Unfortunately, some patients are injured by substandard care from health care providers. When that happens, the patient may have a legal right to seek compensation.
For 50 years, our personal injury attorneys at Joye Law Firm have helped South Carolinians who have been harmed by negligent actions. Our clients are good people facing difficult ordeals as a result of others’ disregard for safety, including carelessness on the part of health care providers. Our medical malpractice attorneys have the knowledge and resources to fight for your interests when filing a medical malpractice claim. While every case stands on its own, our results show the efforts we take to make a positive difference in the lives of our clients.
The Joye Law Firm office in Clinton is run by Attorney Davis Rice who grew up in Clinton, graduated from Clinton High School and attended Presbyterian College as a student-athlete.
In addition to our Clinton office, Joye Law Firm has a statewide presence with offices in Columbia, North Charleston, and Myrtle Beach. Joye Law Firm’s office in Clinton is located on Broad Street. Contact a Clinton medical malpractice lawyer at Joye Law Firm for a free and confidential consultation with no obligation or fill out an online contact form.
What is a Medical Malpractice?
Medical malpractice occurs when doctors, hospitals and other health care providers fail to follow the recognized standard of care in delivering treatment and a patient suffers significant harm as a result. The harm may be committed by errors in diagnosis, treatment or follow-up care.
In some instances, the harm is committed by an individual health care provider’s action or failure to act. In other cases, the harm was caused by a systemic problem resulting from a hospital’s policies such as the way medicine is stored, which can contribute to mix-ups when administering medication. In many instances, the harm suffered is life changing.
The types of health care providers that may be held liable for medical malpractice in South Carolina include doctors, physicians’ assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, LPNs, chiropractors, dentists, dental hygienists, oral surgeons, and pharmacists.
A Clinton medical malpractice lawsuit also may be filed against a hospital, outpatient surgical center or birthing center in their capacity as a health care provider. The victim must file a claim within three years after the medical malpractice occurs.
It is important to recognize that not every medical error is medical negligence. For example, a medical procedure may be extremely complicated, with well-known risks that were disclosed before the procedure. In such a situation, the health care provider may not have acted negligently. However, you may be entitled to compensation if the medical malpractice falls under one of these categories.
Types of Medical Malpractice Cases
Claims of medical malpractice are often based on the following types of preventable medical errors:
- Delayed Diagnosis — A physician’s initial diagnosis of a medical condition may be inaccurate because the doctor did not order the standard diagnostic tests, misread the results or failed to communicate the results. Delays caused by a diagnostic error can allow cancer to advance and make it more difficult to treat.
- Misdiagnosis — When a doctor’s misdiagnosis of a condition leads to incorrect treatment or lack of treatment, it can allow a potentially treatable disease or condition to advance and become untreatable. Not all diagnostic errors amount to medical negligence. It must be shown that the doctor did not take the steps that another reasonably prudent doctor would have taken in a similar situation to reach a proper diagnosis, and the patient was harmed as a result.
- Birth Injury — Medical negligence related to labor and delivery may involve preventable injuries to the newborn during delivery caused by a doctor’s failure to respond in a timely fashion to complications due to a high-risk pregnancy. The delivery team has a duty to monitor the health of the mother and baby and to respond quickly when needed. Birth injuries can cause permanent disabilities and require ongoing treatment.
- Surgical Errors — Every year, patients undergoing surgical procedures at hospitals and ambulatory care centers in Clinton suffer preventable injuries caused by surgical negligence. Surgery may be performed on the wrong part of the body or a surgical tool may be left inside a patient. Procedures on the wrong body part or wrong patient still occur surprisingly often. Certain surgical errors are referred to as “never events” because they should never happen to a patient. But they still do. A patient may have to undergo follow-up surgery to address a serious issue. A Clinton surgical errors lawyer at Joye Law Firm can help you determine whether you have been the victim of a medical error that was preventable.
- Anesthesia Errors — An error in the dosage of anesthesia or a lack of adequate monitoring of a sedated patient can cause serious injuries. If an anesthesiologist fails to take a proper medical history or monitor a patient properly, the patient may suffer a brain injury, heart attack or other adverse reaction.
- Emergency Room Errors — Emergency rooms are often chaotic places where doctors and nurses are overwhelmed with patients. Emergency room errors are one of the leading causes of Clinton medical malpractice cases. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that emergency room errors account for nearly half of malpractice-related patient deaths.
How to Prove Medical Negligence
To prove medical malpractice, our Clinton medical malpractice law firm works with licensed medical professionals to show that your doctor did not act as a reasonably prudent doctor would have acted in a comparable situation and as a result, preventable harm occurred to you or your loved one.
To prove a medical malpractice case, the patient who was injured must show that:
- There was a professional relationship between the doctor and patient, creating a duty of care;
- The health care provider violated the duty of care;
- The patient sustained harm as a result of the health care provider’s conduct.
Through medical expert testimony and analysis of your medical records, our Clinton medical malpractice attorneys build a case to show that the doctor or other health care provider deviated from the recognized standard of care and that the harm you suffered was a result of deviating from that standard.
Compensation/Damages Available in Case
The types of compensation that an injured patient may demand in a medical malpractice lawsuit include:
- Payment of medical bills for follow-up surgery and treatment to repair the damage caused by the medical errors and for future medical care
- Lost wages from missed work
- Pain and suffering and mental anguish
- A spouse’s loss of sexual relations
- Punitive damages in special cases
How a Clinton SC Medical Malpractice Lawyer Can Help
Neither the doctor nor the hospital is likely to step forward and admit to you that a medical error has occurred and that the health care provider committed the error. Often injured patients are left confused and unsure about what actually happened. They have unanswered questions or only discover the injury after the fact. You will need the assistance of a knowledgeable Clinton medical malpractice attorney to obtain your medical records and find out what actually happened.
Our Clinton medical malpractice attorneys will analyze the medical records carefully to determine whether malpractice likely occurred and who was at fault.
We will review your medical bills and future treatment needs and estimate the fair value of your claim. We will present a demand letter to the insurance company representing the medical provider seeking full compensation for your injuries.
Our attorneys will seek to negotiate a fair settlement with the insurance provider. If the insurance company refuses to agree to a fair settlement, our Clinton medical malpractice attorneys will be ready to pursue justice in a Laurens County courtroom. Most cases are settled without a trial. But if the case goes to trial, we are confident of our attorneys’ trial skills.
Doctors and hospitals will fight to defend their reputations and they have a lot of resources. You want to work with a well-established Clinton medical malpractice law firm that has the resources to stand up to a hospital or medical practice and see a malpractice case through to conclusion. At Joye Law Firm, we have 50 years of experience helping injured people and the resources to handle complicated medical malpractice cases. We prepare each case thoroughly and work to achieve positive results for every client.
