What Is Informed Consent?
It is more common than you might think for people to confuse medical malpractice and the information provided to them when they gave their consent for a certain treatment. However, understanding that there is a significant difference between a treatment risk and a medical error is critical.
Medical malpractice should never happen, but when it does in Louisville, Kentucky, you may be entitled to financial compensation with the help of a dedicated medical malpractice lawyer at Wilt Injury Lawyers.
Continue reading to learn more about what informed consent is and how it relates to medical malpractice so you can maximize your chances of holding your negligent healthcare provider accountable in Louisville.
Informed Consent, Explained
When you are being treated for a medical condition, injury, or other health concern, your healthcare provider has an obligation to inform you of all of the side effects and risks associated with a particular treatment. Once you have been informed of these risks and side effects and given your consent to continue with the treatment or procedure, you have given your “informed consent.”
Before proceeding with any type of treatment or procedure, your healthcare provider has an obligation to ensure that you are fully aware and understand the potential risk factors of this treatment option. Failure to obtain your informed consent, misleading you, or providing you with minimal information means that your informed consent has not been expressly given.
When something goes wrong after being treated for a medical condition, it is quite normal for a patient to assume that what’s happened to them was a result of the treatment itself. While this is sometimes true, it is not always the case.
In fact, when a healthcare provider tries to mask mistakes that they have made as risk factors and side effects, they can be held accountable in a Louisville medical malpractice lawsuit.
What Is Medical Malpractice?
To put it simply, medical malpractice occurs when an error is made. Now, this can get a little confusing at times because healthcare providers don’t always know exactly how the body is going to react.
However, in order for a medical malpractice lawsuit to be successful, your lawyer at Wilt Injury Lawyers, PLLC, will need to be able to prove that there has been a breach in the medical standard of care.
This medical standard of care states that healthcare providers are held to a high standard of, well, care. When a mistake has been made that another healthcare provider of similar training, education, and experience would not have made, it is likely that the medical standard of care has been breached.
As can be seen, this breach of the standard of care is much different from side effects that might occur after you have given your informed consent.
Contact a Kentucky Medical Malpractice Lawyer
If you have been a victim of medical malpractice in Louisville but aren’t sure where to turn, reach out to a dedicated Kentucky medical malpractice lawyer at Wilt Injury Lawyers. You can fill out the quick contact form included below or give our office a call at 502-253-9110 when you are ready to schedule your free, no-obligation consultation about a potential injury claim.