Recently, New York Yankees player Alex Rodriguez filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the team’s doctor and against a New York hospital, claiming that they did not properly diagnose a left hip injury, causing him to have to undergo surgery. The medical malpractice suit further alleges that as a result of the misdiagnosis, Rodriguez was cleared to play, causing him to make the injury even worse. The lawsuit comes after a public feud between Rodriguez and the New York Yankees regarding alleged injuries he received during the season.
Medical malpractice is defined in legal terms as the failure of a doctor, hospital, surgeon, nurse, or other medical authority to properly treat an illness and injury, resulting in further injury, illness, or even death to the patient. It is a form of negligence in that the doctor breaches a duty of care owed to the patient in improperly treating the patient. As with other negligence cases, the plaintiff may file a personal injury lawsuit and recover damages from the doctor for medical malpractice.
A failure to properly diagnose an injury, which is what is alleged in this case, is a common form of medical malpractice. Doctors can make a wrong diagnosis regarding an illness or injury, and this results in the patient not getting the proper medicine or care, thus exacerbating the problem. In this case, Alex Rodriguez alleges that the hospital did not properly diagnose his hip injury, causing him to undergo further injury and negatively impacting his baseball performance. Whether it occurs in New York or New Jersey, medical malpractice is a serious problem that affects the famous and the obscure.
Anyone impacted by medical malpractice is entitled to file a personal injury lawsuit and recover monetary damages. This is to compensate them for the injury or additional illnesses suffered from the malpractice, and the defendant is also held accountable for the failure to properly treat the problem. Any victim of medical malpractice has the legal right to seek legal redress for the wrong done to them.
Source: New York Daily News, “Alex Rodriguez files litigation against Yankees team doctor, hospital,” Christian Red, Nathaniel Vinton & Michael O’Keeffe, Oct. 4, 2013.