What are Georgia’s Medical Malpractice Laws?

If you have a friend or relative who died or was badly injured while receiving medical care, we know that it can be very difficult to have unanswered questions about what exactly happened. From our experience dealing with hospitals and doctors, they are often vague about what went wrong with a patient, leaving family members confused and wondering if there could have been a different outcome.

Although we created this page in order to give you quick, accurate information about malpractice cases in Georgia, you will get much more personalized information by calling our office and talking to our attorneys directly.

Although our firm has great respect for the medical professionals who take care of our families, friends, and communities every day, we are also realistic about the fact that medical negligence is a serious issue with real consequences.

Doctors and nurses are humans like everyone else, and they make mistakes like all of us do. Unfortunately, though, making mistakes while treating the human body can be deadly. When beginning to pursue a medical malpractice case, here are some key points to keep in mind:

• A doctor is not liable unless he or she has done something that was not up to the “standard of medical care.” In other words, the doctor must have done something different than what a a reasonable, careful doctor would have done in the same circumstances. Because of this, injury or death after misdiagnosis, surgery, or a stay in the hospital are not valid malpractice cases unless the doctor actually did something unusual.
• Only experienced attorneys have the skills to look at your case and decide if it is actually a malpractice issue.
• Medical problems and complications can easily arise through no fault of the doctor. Malpractice is not always the reason why something went wrong.
• Because medical malpractice cases are very expensive for law firms to handle, our firm will only accept cases that we know are legitimate.
• If medical malpractice only resulted in minor damage, then it does not make financial sense to bring the case forward.
• If you have a misdiagnosis case, meaning a doctor or pharmacy is responsible for someone taking the wrong medicine or the wrong amount of medicine, keep in mind that these cases are usually more complicated than people think.
• Of course, these are only general guidelines that do not apply to everyone’s case. So if you believe you have a legitimate medical malpractice case to pursue, do not hesitate to contact us and see what the options are for your specific circumstances.

The Most Common Medical Mistakes

A Patient Receives the Wrong Medicine—This is usually the result of a pharmacy giving a patient the wrong medicine, but it can also happen when a doctor makes an incorrect prescription.

Errors in Surgery—Because surgery is such an exact, complicated procedure, doctors have many opportunities to make mistakes. Although we hope that none of this will happen to you, here are some of the most common errors during surgery: unsterile surgical environments leading to infections, surgical materials (like clamps or sponges) left inside patients, anesthesia errors leading to death or major brain damage, and puncturing an organ during surgery.

Errors When Delivering Babies—Mistakes while delivering a baby can lead to the infant dying or suffering major brain damage, in addition to seriously harming the mother. While these events are rare, they do occur perhaps more often than you would think.

Negligence in the Nursing Home—Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for nursing home residents to develop bed sores from being left unattended, become malnourished from lack of food, or even suffer abuse from their caretakers.

Our Firm’s Experience Can Help You

Charles E. (“Trip”) Johnson, III, is one of our firm’s partners, and his perspective as the son of a practicing Atlanta doctor has been invaluable in helping to evaluate our clients’ medical claims. In addition to his wealth of personal experience, Trip has actually worked as a defense attorney specializing in medical malpractice at a well-known insurance company. We will put all of our collective experience together to determine if your case is a true medical malpractice issue. If it is, then you can rest assured that we will put our full force behind your case.