Medical Opinion

Personal injury claims are civil claims and the expert has to address the various issues on a balance of probabilities. In other words, the expert does not need to be certain what would have happened otherwise in the past, or will happen in the future; anything which is more than 50% likely, in the expert’s opinion, will be treated by the law as a certainty, if the opinion is accepted.

The main aim of a medico-legal meeting with an expert is to give them sufficient information to enable them to produce a report which will help in valuing your claim.

The Medical Opinion reports are prepared based on the following details:

• What happened in the accident/incident and how did you come to be injured?

• What injuries or medical conditions were diagnosed and what treatment have you received from hospitals, GP, physiotherapists, etc.?

• What recovery have you made by now and have you fully recovered?

• Are you still taking any medication and, if so, what is that?

• Have you ever suffered any similar injuries or medical conditions in the past?

• How much has the accident affected your social, domestic and work activities between the date of the accident and now?

• Why do things which happened before the accident matter?

• Sometimes we have medical conditions which we are not aware about and they are only brought to light when we have an accident. In some cases, such medical conditions may have gone on to cause you symptoms even if you had not had the accident.

Expert Medical Opinion Services in Medical Malpractice:
Medical malpractice, like most personal injury cases, is always based on negligence. The patient can only win a medical malpractice lawsuit if he/she proves that the physician was negligent (i.e., the doctor did not act reasonably or with the skill and care that a reasonably qualified doctor would have demonstrated under similar circumstances.).

The following are the most common categories for medical malpractice:

• Misdiagnosis

• Negligence affecting pregnancy and childbirth

• Mistakes in prescribing or administering medication

• Surgical errors

Misdiagnosis can occur with complex conditions because patients do not always have the textbook list of symptoms. The consequences of misdiagnosis can be life-threatening or even fatal because the physician has been spending valuable time treating the wrong condition.

Medical malpractice relating to medication is extremely common. Medication errors can result from administering the wrong medication or from administering too much or too little medication.

Mistakes by the surgeon or anesthesiologist during the surgery are not unusual. The most common surgical errors are damaging a nerve, failing to control bleeding, and leaving a foreign body (like a medical sponge) inside the patient. But surgeons have also, believe it or not, performed the wrong operation, sometimes on the wrong part of the body or occasionally on the wrong patient entirely. The most common locations for surgical error are the gastrointestinal tract and the spine.