West Des Moines, Iowa Personal Injury Blog

Iowa doctors and other health care practitioners are expected to reach a certain level of professionalism and proficiency. When the required standard of care is not met, the patient may have a claim for medical malpractice. Medical malpractice cases are dependent on a theory of negligence, which means in part that the defendant allegedly failed to meet a required standard of care.

The elements of a medical malpractice claim are that a duty existed between the health care professional and the patient, that the duty was breached, and the patient was harmed as a result of the breach. In order for a court to determine that a health care professional was negligent, the injured party must demonstrate that the medical care provided fell below the generally acceptable standard of care. The demonstration often requires the testimony of a medical expert in the same field. The expert will usually testify regarding the acceptable standard of care and the failure of the defendant health care professional to meet that standard.

Iowa residents who are expecting a child should know that difficult deliveries are not uncommon. The baby can be injured in these, and one of those possible injuries is called Klumpke paralysis. This rare condition is defined as an injury to the nerves in the child's shoulder, called the brachial plexus, and it can cause stretching, scarring or tearing.

Stretching, known as neuropraxia, is the most minor injury. A tear is the most serious and can take the form of an avulsion, which occurs at the spine, or a rupture. Whatever the extent of the injury, it usually results in weakness and loss of movement in the lower arm and hand. One may even notice that the eyelid on the side of the face opposite the injury will droop. This is a rare symptom and is called Horner syndrome. Usually, a physical examination done at birth will detect Klumpke paralysis.

In Iowa and across the U.S., nurses must face a stressful work environment, and this can cause them to lose focus and make mistakes. The following are the five most common errors made by nurses both new and experienced.

First are medication errors. Nurses are liable to confuse two patients and give one the other's medication or confuse two drugs with similar names. To avoid these errors, nurses should double-check names as well as patients' height and weight, continually update the list of medications and ask patients about any allergies prior to the administration of a drug.

Central Iowa residents should know that a majority of medical malpractice claims arise because of a diagnostic error, usually misdiagnosis. This was the conclusion of a study published in the journal Diagnosis in July 2019. In particular, there were three types of conditions that were behind most of the errors: cancers, vascular events and infections.

Of the 55,000 or so malpractice claims that researchers analyzed, nearly 12,000 were linked to a misdiagnosis. These claims were filed between 2006 and 2015, and half of them were aimed against primary care physicians, including family physicians and pediatricians. It turns out that 74% of these misdiagnosis claims were linked to one of the three conditions mentioned above. The breakdown was 38% cancer, 23% vascular events and 13% infections.