While a visit to the emergency room at your local hospital is never an enjoyable experience, you should still trust the doctors and nurses who care for you during that visit to act professionally and according to their education and expertise. Fortunately, most emergency room personnel do so—however, some allow their patients to sustain avoidable harm through their own reckless or careless conduct.
Successfully recovering compensation for medical negligence in an emergency room setting can be especially challenging even by the standards of malpractice litigation. However, a medical malpractice attorney can help. A seasoned Connecticut emergency room (ER) error lawyer can help establish that the medical professional breached their standard of care, directly leading to your injuries.
The Standard of Care for ER Doctors
Rather than the broader definition of negligence that most injury claims are built on, malpractice litigation revolves around a claim that a healthcare professional violated a standard of care, causing preventable injury as a direct result. Unlike “duties of care” in other cases, the applicable standard for a physician can vary substantially depending on their role inside a medical facility.
Because emergency rooms are almost always hectic and high-stakes environments, the physicians who work there are not held to the same standards that doctors in other environments—for example, primary care physicians completing appointments at their own preferred pace—may be expected to meet.
This means that a mistake by an emergency room physician may not serve as grounds for civil recovery if it is something that a reasonably competent doctor put under the same stressful conditions may have done. Clearing this high bar for negligence in Connecticut ER error claims can require extensive documentary evidence and input from various medical experts, both of which an attorney can provide crucial help obtaining.
Recoverable Damages Through a Successful Claim
If an emergency room physician causes a patient to suffer unreasonably substantial harm, they may demand restitution for all damages they can trace to the error. This includes objective financial losses like extra medical expenses and other long-term and non-economic damages like the following:
- Lost earning capacity
- Costs of assistive medical equipment made necessary by the error
- Lost enjoyment of life
- Lost consortium
- Physical pain and psychological trauma
As an experienced lawyer familiar with ER mistakes can further explain, plaintiffs generally have no more than two years after discovering their injuries (and a maximum of three years after actually sustaining harm) in which to file suit, as per Connecticut General Statutes §52-584.
A Connecticut Emergency Room Error Attorney Can Help
Because emergency room personnel play such a critical and unpredictable role in modern hospitals, they have a bit more leeway for mistakes made on the job compared to most other physicians. However, that does not mean patients who suffer unreasonable harm in an ER cannot demand financial compensation from the people or entities responsible for those injuries.
Working with a skilled Connecticut emergency room error lawyer should be a high priority if you want a strong chance at a beneficial case resolution. Schedule your initial consultation today to get started.
