Medical Malpractice

Experienced Medical Malpractice Attorneys

Our lawyers have successfully handled medical malpractice cases in Raleigh, Charlotte, and across North Carolina while representing patients and their families affected by preventable medical errors. We handle these cases on a contingent fee basis, advancing all expenses and accepting no fee until a recovery has been obtained.

Over 400,000 people die each year from preventable medical errors.

A recent study by the Journal of Patient Safety determined that as many as 440,000 people die each year from preventable medical errors in hospitals. That’s one out of every six people that die in the United States every year because of preventable medical errors by doctors and nurses. It has been reported that medical errors cause more deaths than auto accidents and diabetes – only cancer and heart disease kill more people than medical errors. Hospitals call these errors “preventable adverse events.” Most hospitals have reporting forms called “Sentinel Events Reports” or “Adverse Event Reports” to track these errors. These preventable adverse events are also known as medical negligence or medical malpractice. Besides those that die from these events, millions of patients may be harmed by preventable medical errors. In the legal world, preventable medical errors are proven when it can be shown that a doctor or nurse “breached the standard of care.” Our attorneys have years of experience working on medical malpractice cases to prove how doctors and nurses negligently caused injury and death to their patients.

Breaching the standard of care.

The fact that an event is preventable usually means that doctors or nurses breached the standard of care by not taking steps necessary to protect a patient’s safety. More often than not, doctors, nurses and hospital administrators fail to notify the patient that an adverse event has even occurred. We have learned that some hospital policies preclude doctors and administrators from admitting they committed a preventable medical error. Medical records are also often written in ways to hide the fact of a medical error and their involvement in negligence that resulted in a patient’s death or extended care. We have even worked on medical malpractice cases in which critical medical records have been taken home to avoid us seeing them, surgeons have described procedures in ways that conceal their impact in causing injury, and providers have even denied they had a duty to protect a patient’s safety. Our attorneys’ experience in uncovering medical errors, and working to prove what led to the patient’s death, has helped provide answers to families who lost loved ones.

Some medical malpractice cases we've handled:

In one such case, we learned that a patient was given a medication to which the patient had told five doctors and nurses she was allergic. The medication was not recorded correctly in the patient’s medical records and the patient later died from a severe allergic reaction two days later. We discovered that one of the nurses took medical records home that showed how the patient’s allergies were reported. The defendants were sanctioned by the court for their actions.

In another case, an eye surgeon described a surgical procedure in a way that failed to explain how he used an unnecessarily aggressive technique that led to the patient losing sight in one eye. Our experts explained that not only should the surgery never have been performed, but that the aggressive technique failed to consider the patient’s safety – who was left totally blind after the surgery.

In another one of our cases an obstetrician treated a pregnant mother with a full term baby girl over the telephone while the obstetrician was driving home from the beach. The nurses asked the doctor to admit the patient but he denied their requests. The nurses took no further action to admit the patient or to have another doctor called for an additional four hours – all while the unborn baby girl’s condition worsened. At the last minute, the nurses finally called the on-call physician who was only minutes away. When the on-call physician arrived, the unborn baby had already died. This case was investigated by the North Carolina Medical Board. The Medical Board suspended the obstetrician’s medical license because he failed to conform to the standards of acceptable and prevailing medical practice.

In still another case, we learned that an emergency room physician failed to order a CT of an accident victim’s head even though another provider recommended the CT be performed. The patient was sent home and later died from a massive untreated bleed to his brain.

These are only some examples of cases on which we have worked where the medical records did not fully explain the failures in protecting the patient’s safety. Our attorneys uncovered these facts only after conducting weeks of research and months of discovery from the opposing side.

Besides these cases, we also work on medical malpractice cases involving:

• Surgical Errors, such as leaving instruments in a patient, performing surgery on the wrong location, and failing to recognize surgical infection.

• Misdiagnosis, including failure to diagnosis cancer and other serious illnesses.

• Medication errors related to overdose, improper medications, and improper administration.

• Nursing errors, such as improper fall protection, improper monitoring, and patient neglect.

• Nursing home abuse, including malnutrition, dehydration, bedsores, falls, elopement, and failure to obtain or provide lifesaving care.

We dedicate ourselves in every case to find and uncover any hidden fact that may show how medical malpractice occurred. We welcome the opportunity to speak with you about your case and how we might help determine if a preventable medical error caused you or a beloved family member to suffer from medical negligence.