In 2018, CNBC reported that “more than 250,000 people in the United States die every year because of medical mistakes, making it the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer,” according to research conducted by Johns Hopkins. The Journal of Patient Safety concluded that the number of deaths attributable to medical errors actually was more than 400,000. Inevitably, thousands of those annual deaths occur right here in Oregon. Families impacted by medical negligence only have a limited period of time to pursue legal action, which is why contacting a knowledgeable Oregon medical malpractice lawyer as soon as possible is crucial.
Late last month, the Oregon Court of Appeals issued a ruling that revived a widow’s medical malpractice case against the hospital and doctors who treated her husband.
This case is a reminder of several important things, but we’ll focus on two. The first is the prevalence of fatal mistakes by medical providers. As noted above, reputable sources have placed the number of deaths in the hundreds of thousands every year. These mistakes include everything from prescribing (or administering) the wrong drug (or the wrong dosage) to leaving surgical instruments inside patients after operations to making incorrect diagnoses as a result of reviewing the wrong test results.