Philadelphia Medical Malpractice Lawyer

Whether we go in for a routine checkup, seek emergency medical care, or are admitted for a medical procedure, we trust our doctors, surgeons, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to provide a standard level of care. If you or your loved one has experienced any injury due to medical malpractice, seek the legal advice of a reliable medical malpractice attorney in Philadelphia, PA.

Most of us lack the medical expertise to assess whether medical malpractice occurred during an incident. Suppose you were injured due to probable medical malpractice or negligence, a skilled Philadelphia medical malpractice lawyer at The Villari Firm, PLLC can provide you with legal advice on whether you have a case or not.

Proving malpractice is challenging and complex. You can count on The Villari Firm’s Heidi G. Villari, professional Philadelphia medical malpractice lawyer, to put her well over 20 years of experience in courtroom trials and negotiations to work for you. Reach out to our law office today to discuss your case. If you suspect that you received medical care that didn’t meet standard of care and are searching for a Philly med mal lawyer, call 215-372-8889 or contact us online. We offer a free, no-obligation consultation to review your case.

Common Medical Malpractice Cases in Pennsylvania

There are many different types of medical malpractice. Some can cause catastrophic injuries, emotional trauma, or even the death of a patient. Our Philadelphia medical malpractice attorney has experience with all forms of medical malpractice by healthcare professionals in the many lawsuits we have won. We work with medical experts to uncover and prove medical malpractice when it occurs.

Misdiagnosis or Delayed Diagnosis

When a doctor or other healthcare provider does not properly diagnose your medical condition or does not timely diagnose your condition, your condition may get treated improperly or go untreated entirely, causing you harm. When misdiagnosis happens, you might have to endure unnecessary treatments or take harmful medicine, and most importantly, you are wasting precious time receiving treatment for the wrong issue.

Misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis are common claims in medical malpractice lawsuits.

Birth Injuries

A birth injury can happen when a doctor, nurse, or other medical provider is negligent during the birthing process. That negligence causes harm to the mother or child. Birth injuries to a child may be mild or quite severe. In some instances, the child needs long-term care due to their birth injury, often resulting in costly expenses for the duration of the child’s life.
All medical professionals must carry malpractice insurance to insure against malpractice such as negligence causing birth injuries. Unfortunately, birth injury claims are all too common in medical malpractice lawsuits.

Medication Errors

Errors in prescribing medication are also common medical malpractice claims. If a medical professional gives you the wrong medication, administers the wrong dosage of medicine, directs you to take a combination of drugs they should have known would likely cause complications, or gives you medication you are allergic to, this can constitute actionable medical malpractice.

Regardless of your medical malpractice case circumstances, you can count on the experienced medical malpractice attorney at The Villari Firm, PLLC, to help you. Ms. Villari, a top-rated female medical malpractice attorney, has the knowledge and experience to provide an accurate assessment of your case and explain to you how we can help you get justice.

Anesthesia Errors

Any surgical procedure involves the use of anesthesia, which comes with its own set of inherent dangers and need the presence of an anesthesiologist to administer the medication and oversee the patient’s reaction.

Pre-operative Medical Review

Malpractice with anesthesia can occur during the pre-operative medical review or when the surgery is performed. Suppose the anesthesiologist does not conduct a thorough review of all of the patient’s medical records. In that case, they risk giving the patient medication to which they are allergic, which might result in serious damage or even death.

Emergency Room Errors

A hospital emergency room can be a chaotic environment. It’s one of the most stressful workplaces in the medical industry. It can be fatal when a hospital or doctor fails to recognize a heart attack, a stroke that is about to occur, an aneurysm, or a major illness like meningitis.

Errors in emergency rooms are not usually immediately obvious. It could take several days or even a few weeks for the injuries to become apparent. If you find yourself or your loved one in this situation, contact our Philadelphia medical malpractice attorney immediately for help.

Medical Device Errors

Under medical malpractice law, a physician would be personally liable if they decided to use a defective medical device despite being aware that it can produce inaccurate results.

Breach of Duty in Wrongful Use of Devices

Should they fail to exercise the required level of care, they risk being held accountable for negligence. It is possible that a breach of duty has occurred if patients have not been warned that a gadget they are using poses a risk to them.

Failure to Warn or Failure to Establish Informed Consent

A patient’s informed consent indicates that he or she is completely aware of the risks associated with a prescribed treatment plan. If a doctor fails to tell a patient about a specific risk or a potential complication with an existing ailment, he or she violates the responsibility to do no harm and prevents the patient from making an informed decision regarding medical care.

Cancer Misdiagnosis

There are a variety of cancers that can be cured if a medical expert detects them early and precisely. Thus, the patient receives the appropriate treatment as soon as possible. Cancer misdiagnosis can cause a patient to waste precious time that otherwise could have been spent aggressively treating the cancer cells growing within the patient’s body.

If a cancer patient does not receive an accurate diagnosis from their doctor, this could mean the difference between life and death. When a cancer is not detected in its early stages by a physician, a patient’s odds of survival frequently decline rapidly.

Cervical Cancer Misdiagnosis

Most cases of cervical cancer can be avoided. Regular pap smears taken during routine pelvic exams can detect early pre-cancerous changes (dysplasia) before they progress to malignancy. Early detection and treatment result in less invasive and frequently successful treatments. However, there are mistakes made when interpreting pap smear results. These cervical cancer misdiagnoses frequently allow cancer to develop and advance to the point where invasive and aggressive treatments are required.

Hospital Malpractice

Patients who have been harmed due to negligent medical care almost always file a claim for compensation with the specific physician who was at fault. But they may also consider filing a claim against the hospital. A hospital is solely accountable for malpractice committed by its workers, which tends to exclude the majority of doctors.

Healthcare Facility Can Be Held Liable

However, there are several circumstances in which a hospital may still be held liable for misconduct committed by a doctor. On the other hand, a hospital is typically liable for hospital malpractice committed by other medical professionals, including nurses, anesthesiologists, and technicians. This is because these medical professionals are employed directly by the hospital.

Pharmaceutical Negligence

When a doctor or pharmacist makes a negligent or incompetent error with a patient’s medication, it is known as pharmaceutical malpractice. Doctors gather relevant medical histories, evaluate physical health, diagnose, and develop treatment plans as part of the medical process.

Most treatment plans require a prescription, which patients must obtain from a pharmacist. Even though medical professionals perform this process dozens of times every day, mistakes can still happen.

Surgical Malpractice

Surgical malpractice is any incorrect, careless, or even unlawful behavior by a surgeon, anesthesiologist, or other medical professionals that causes harm to a patient during surgery. While surgical mistakes can be attributed to organizations and specific people, surgical malpractice is always the responsibility of individual surgeons.

Serious Injuries as A Result

Surgery mistakes can result in serious injuries, and many patients will need ongoing care. The event can be emotionally stressful for the patient and their family, in addition to physical harm. In your best interest, immediately contact a medical malpractice lawyer in Philadelphia if you or a loved one has been hurt due to a surgical mistake.

Orthopedic Negligence

Orthopedic negligence can be any errors that occur before, during, and following surgery or treatment, which greatly influences your well-being. Numerous instances of clinical negligence can result in successful orthopedic surgery claims.

Traumatic Injuries

It might be an undetected fracture that is left untreated and worsens, a trauma sustained during orthopedic surgery, or unneeded surgery on a shattered bone. You might have a strong orthopedic case if you or a loved one suffered any additional bone or muscle injuries due to medical malpractice. Consult with your medical malpractice attorney in Philadelphia to know your claims.

How Do Medical Mistakes Occur?

Breakdown in Communications

Unfortunately, lack of verbal or written communication among the medical team or institutions often results in medical error, causing harm. Someone may misidentify a patient, skip entering information on a patient’s chart, fail to label specimens properly, fail to forward medical records or fail to report observations to the surgeon during a procedure. Any of these can result in significant harm.

Lack of Knowledge

There are many different types of medical professionals in a hospital setting, all with differing levels of training and, among those, different amounts of experience. Hospitals frequently use temporary help. This means medical knowledge and expertise vary among the staff, and mistakes are often made due to that lack of knowledge.

Failure to Follow Policy or Procedure

A hospital, rehabilitation facility, or other medical facilities must have policies and procedures to ensure their patients receive the appropriate care. If medical professionals fail to follow those procedures and that failure causes harm to a patient, they may have committed medical malpractice.

Inadequate Policies or Procedures

Although medical facilities must have policies and procedures to ensure appropriate care, those policies and procedures may be inadequate to address patient care and safety fully.

For example, the recent COVID-19 pandemic forced medical facilities to overhaul personal protective equipment requirements and quarantine policies and procedures for patients and staff. If they fail to revise or create such policies, causing patients to contract COVID-19, they may be negligent.

Poor Record Keeping

Medical records include documentation on clinical findings, diagnostic test results, preoperative care, operation notes, post-operative notes, and daily progress and medication notes for hospitalized patients.

Medical records enable a physician to demonstrate that treatment was appropriate and administered correctly. When nurses, physicians, surgeons, and medical specialists lack access to accurate medical records, they may struggle to diagnose and treat patients appropriately.

Inadequate Staffing

If a facility is short-staffed, they may pull personnel from one duty to serve another. This may deprive a patient of the attention they need and cause them harm. For example, in surgery, every machine has a medical team member to observe it. If a medical professional is tasked with monitoring two machines due to inadequate staffing, their attention is divided, and they may miss vital information about the patient’s condition.

Lack of Rest and Sleep

Long shifts and lack of rest can cause fatigue and increase the risk of medical malpractice among physicians and other medical personnel. Fatigue can result from night shifts, long hours, and insufficient doctor rest breaks.

Fatigued physicians may expose their patients to the risk of medical malpractice. This may trigger medical personnel to take shortcuts or the “easy route” when assisting patients. Sleep-deprived medical personnel are less likely to weigh their options and make informed decisions that may impact the condition of their patients.

Technical Failure

The failure of monitoring equipment is a frequent cause of patient harm. A medical facility must keep its equipment in good repair and up to date. If it did not, and a monitor failed, preventing the medical team from realizing a problem and causing the patient harm, the facility may be liable.

Alcohol or Drug Dependence

Exposure to high-stress situations, such as emergency crises and emotional exhaustion, can lead medical professionals to seek solace in alcohol. Substance abuse places physicians at an alarming risk of being sued for medical malpractice.

Their inability to perform necessary tasks safely and accurately can devastate their patients. Intoxicated doctors may misdiagnose patients or misread their medical records, while surgeons with impairments may operate on the wrong body parts or make careless errors that can be fatal.

Why Do I Need a Medical Malpractice Lawyer?

An experienced medical malpractice lawyer assesses your situation for potential acts of medical malpractice and uses professional connections to credible medical experts to confirm and prove medical malpractice occurred, causing harm to you. What you can expect when you work with a medical malpractice lawyer at The Villari Firm, PLLC is we will:

Thoroughly review your case;
Work with medical experts to determine whether the standard of care was met, and if not, whether the deviation from the standard of care caused your damages;
Work with medical and forensic experts to calculate your damages;
Correspond with the lawyers for the defendants;
Negotiate with defendants or the insurance company or companies;
Keep you apprised of developments in your case;
Promptly return your calls and emails;
Litigate your case in court against those who harmed you if a settlement cannot be reached.

The medical practitioner or hospital responsible for your injuries or the loss of a loved one should be brought to justice. This means dealing with a medical malpractice insurance company, which fights tooth and nail to avoid paying your claim. Let us fight them for you and get you the fair and full compensation you are entitled to.

Don’t be tempted to accept a lowball settlement just to get this over and move on. Do not let a negligent hospital get away with failing to provide you with proper care. See justice served by working with an aggressive medical malpractice law firm that puts your needs first – The Villari Firm, PLLC.

How Do Med Mal Lawyers Know If You Have A Case?

Not every poor medical outcome happens due to medical malpractice. Sometimes a physician or other medical professional makes all the right choices, and a patient still suffers harm from their injury, illness, procedure, or medication.

To have grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit, you must demonstrate the following:

Failure to adhere to a standard of care: Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals must meet certain standards of care when treating a patient. If your healthcare provider fails to meet the applicable standard of care, you may have a medical malpractice claim.
Factual cause of harm: Once you prove there was a deviation from the applicable standard of care, you must then show the deviation was the reason you suffered harm.
Damages: A medical malpractice claim must show evidence you suffered harm, or damages, because of the deviation from the applicable standard of care and describe what those damages are and what they are worth.
Certificate of Merit: In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you must obtain a signed certificate from an expert witness (such as a doctor) supporting the validity of your claim.

Our Philadelphia medical malpractice attorneys have been representing victims of medical negligence in cases since 1998, recovering over $125 million in settlements and verdicts. Using that experience, we evaluate your medical malpractice case diligently and help you obtain all the necessary documentation to support your claim. Call us to discuss your case.

Pennsylvania Medical Malpractice FAQs

What is Medical Malpractice?

Medical malpractice is the failure of a medical practitioner to adhere to the applicable standard of care, causing harm to a patient. When a health care professional or provider fails to offer adequate treatment, take appropriate action, or provide a substandard treatment to a patient, it is considered medical malpractice. And it can result in the patient suffering harm, injury, or even death.

Medical care errors are typically included when malpractice or neglect is involved. This could include diagnosis, medication dosage, health management, treatment, or aftercare.

If you or any of your loved ones are victims of medical malpractice, seek legal advice from a qualified medical malpractice lawyer in Philadelphia to help you fight for your rights and compensation claims.

What Are the Requirements for Filing a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit?

If you suspect you have been the victim of medical malpractice in Philadelphia, it is crucial that you contact a reputable, trustworthy, and seasoned medical malpractice attorney. Your lawyer will help you gather evidence and establish your case to receive just compensation for your injuries.

To file a medical malpractice claim for your injuries, you must demonstrate the following:

Prove a patient-doctor relationship existed. Suppose you meet a doctor at a social event and mistake a casual remark made by the doctor as medical advice.
In that case, the doctor cannot be held accountable for malpractice if you end up hurting yourself due to following the advice. You are required to be able to provide evidence that you have gone to the doctor and have received treatment in an official capacity.
Breach of duty. When a doctor owes a patient a duty of care, the patient must show that the doctor violated that obligation by falling short of the standard of care that the medical community would have expected.

In other words, if the patient can demonstrate that the doctor’s care or treatment fell below the standard of care, the doctor has breached the duty due to the patient.

Injury as a result of the breach of duty. This indicates that the patient suffered injuries as a direct consequence of the doctor’s negligent actions, such as the failure to diagnose cancer or the incorrect administration of an anesthetic timely.
Proximate Cause. You will need to provide evidence that your injuries were caused directly by the acts or inaction of your doctor. You can only file a claim for injuries and losses directly resulting from the defendant’s action or inaction with you.

When Can You Sue for Medical Malpractice?

You can sue for medical malpractice when you believe you suffered harm due to a medical practitioner’s negligence.

What is the Statute of Limitations on a Medical Malpractice Claim?

The statute of limitation for medical malpractice, like most personal injury claims, is two years in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This means you must file suit within two years of the incident or the day you became aware you were harmed.

Is Medical Malpractice Difficult to Prove?

Medical malpractice is notoriously difficult to prove because, while it may be a simple matter to show a medical practitioner had a duty to you, it requires:

Research and expert testimony to show what that duty was;
Extensive investigation to show they breached that duty; and
Medical expert’s assessment and testimony that the breach injured the patient.

Many cases fail due to the lack of proof of one of these elements. You need an experienced personal injury lawyer in your jurisdiction to pursue and prove all elements of your claim and get you the compensation you deserve.

What is the Difference Between Medical Malpractice and Negligence?

These two concepts are frequently discussed and may appear to be interchangeable; nonetheless, there is a significant distinction between them. In the case of medical malpractice, the attending physician or other medical professional is aware that they are not providing the patient with the appropriate degree of care that the patient requires and deserves.

The individual in the medical profession is engaged in an activity with a specific goal in mind. Medical negligence differs from other types of negligence in that it refers to an error committed by a physician or another member of the medical community that resulted in an injury to the patient.

Trust Our 20+ Years of Experience in Medical Negligence Cases

Proving negligence and calculating damages requires years of experience in your jurisdiction. Heidi G. Villari has represented medical malpractice victims in Philadelphia and New Jersey since 1998 and has obtained over $130 million in settlements and judgments during her time as a personal injury lawyer. One of Ms. Villari’s most notable medical malpractice successes was an $11 million jury verdict in Buck County, Pennsylvania, involving a woman who suffered a tear during childbirth, causing urinary and fecal incontinence. A small sampling of Ms. Villari’s other medical malpractice successes includes:

Medical Malpractice – $20,000,000 settlement for an obstetrical injury;
Medical Malpractice -$9,750,000 settlement for a cardiac patient who became blind post-surgery;
Medical Malpractice – $6,500,000 settlement for failure to diagnose cancer leading to blindness;
Medical Malpractice – $5,000,000 settlement in a medical malpractice case involving a medically inadequate surgery on a child born with a genetic heart condition and pulmonary atresia resulting in permanent brain injury;
Medical Malpractice – $4,000,000 settlement in a medical malpractice case against a satellite location of a hospital for improperly intubating a young child;
Medical Malpractice – $2,300,000 settlement in an adverse drug interaction case;
Medical Malpractice – $1,000,000 settlement in a medical malpractice case for kidney damage from administering a medication off-label without medically appropriate follow-up care;
Medical Malpractice – $1,000,000 settlement in a medical malpractice case for surgical error resulting in the death of a 74-year-old;
Medical Malpractice – $750,000 settlement in a medical malpractice case involving medication errors, resulting in severe injuries;
Medical Malpractice – $700,000 settlement in a medical malpractice case for negligent diagnosis and treatment, resulting in death;
Medical Malpractice – $675,000 settlement in a medical malpractice case for injuries sustained from a vascular surgical error;
Medical Malpractice – $550,000 settlement in a medical malpractice case for injuries sustained from a colonoscopy and negligent follow-up diagnosis and care.

Serving Throughout Philadelphia

Rittenhouse Square
Old City
Fishtown
Northern Liberties
Graduate Hospital
Queen Village
Bella Vista
Fairmount
Brewerytown
Point Breeze
East Passyunk
Washington Square West
University City
Logan Square
Society Hill
Pennsport
Chestnut Hill
Roxborough
Manayunk
Germantown

Contact Our Philadelphia Medical Malpractice Attorneys Today!

Your job is to heal from your injury. Rest assured, your Philly medical malpractice claim is in good hands when you work with The Villari Firm, PLLC. Call us today to discuss your case.