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Most of us have little medical knowledge, and when we are sick, we are dependent on doctors and other medical staff to do their job properly. But in those situations where they don't and it leads to injury, it is not always obvious whether it was a situation that qualifies as malpractice. The following are a few circumstances where you may have been a victim of malpractice.

An infection obtained in a hospital

There are certain inherent risks of infections when you have surgeries, but it is also possible to get an infection simply due to the medical staff not following proper procedure. This negligence is a form of malpractice. A hospital is responsible for all of its medical staff. One red flag that an infection may be malpractice is that the infection was not explained as a possible risk of the surgery, but after your operation, you find that you have an infection that appears to have no source, and it is not related to the surgery in any way. If this infection has caused harm, you may be entitled to damages.

You were given the wrong medication

This can happen in a hospital setting, and is often a case of malpractice There are safety procedures in place so patients will not be given the wrong medication. Another example of wrong medication is if the diagnosis of your condition was outside the norm, given the test results and symptoms you showed. The drugs that were prescribed did not help and led to a further deterioration of your health. However, keep in mind that just because a diagnosis was wrong, it still may not be a case of malpractice. A misdiagnosis is common. What is important is whether the doctor recognized that you were not responding to the drugs and should have stopped the medication and run further tests.

Side effects of a surgery

After a surgery, you begin to experience problems, but these problems were not side effects you were ever told about. In some cases, it may be that a doctor did not counsel you on the potential side effects or neglected to give you pertinent information. However, it may be that you were never told of a side effect because it only happened due to negligence during surgery.

Keep in mind that just because the outcome of a surgery or treatment was not what you wanted, it does not mean that there is necessarily a medical malpractice case. There is inherent risk in surgeries and treatments. But there are also standards that should be met by doctors and medical staff. If you believe you have been hurt by your stay in a hospital or by treatment from a doctor, you should consult with a medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible. Click here to continue reading more about medical malpractice.