Georgia Malpractice Law

What actually makes something medical malpractice? Not a bad outcome, though that is what most people assume. A patient can receive careful, competent treatment and still get worse, and none...

Every week that passes, a treatable condition becomes less treatable. The diagnosis, when it finally comes, is correct, but the window in which it would have made the most difference...

A patient is diagnosed with one condition and treated for it, while the real condition goes unaddressed. The treatment may even work as intended for the diagnosis that was made,...

Is every surgical complication a mistake? The honest answer is no, and that answer is the key to understanding this entire area. Surgery carries inherent risks that materialize even when...

A surgical team pauses before the first incision. A checklist is read aloud, the patient's identity is confirmed, the site is marked and verified against the consent form. This pause...

A prescription can be perfectly correct and a patient can still be harmed by it. The right drug, the right dose, ordered by a careful physician, becomes an injury when...

Is a medication error just one kind of mistake? It is not, and the difference matters more than it might seem. Deciding what to prescribe is a clinical judgment, made...

The same act of medical carelessness can be judged by two very different standards depending on where it happens. In an ordinary clinic, a provider is measured against the standard...

A hospital reviews a physician's application for privileges. The file shows a pattern that should raise concern: a history that a careful review would flag. The hospital grants the privileges...

A patient is harmed by a physician's negligence at a hospital. The natural assumption is that the hospital is automatically on the hook. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it is...

Does a nurse simply carry out a doctor's orders, with no independent responsibility of their own? Many people assume so, and the assumption is wrong. Nurses hold professional obligations that...

In an operating room, a patient is unconscious and cannot report that something is wrong. The monitors are the patient's voice. A drop in oxygen, a shift in blood pressure,...

A patient signs a consent form before a procedure. Does that signature mean the patient was informed? Not necessarily, and the gap between a signature and genuine informed consent is...

Is every difficult birth outcome the result of negligence? The answer is no, and starting there matters. Childbirth carries real risks that exist even when every provider does everything right,...

A three-year-old cannot describe where it hurts, cannot say the pain started two days ago, cannot explain that it is worse when she breathes in. She can only cry, or...

When medical negligence leads to a patient's death, what changes about the legal claim? The question is not only emotional but structural. A malpractice claim that would have belonged to...

At the center of most malpractice recoveries sit two categories of harm, calculated in completely different ways. One is measured by receipts: medical bills, lost wages, the concrete costs that...

A common belief among injured patients goes like this: if I was partly to blame for what happened, I cannot recover anything at all. It is an understandable assumption, and...

Two physicians are asked to testify about whether a surgeon met the standard of care. Both are board-certified, both are experienced, both are willing. One is permitted to take the...

Spread across a table in a deposition room, a patient's medical record can run to hundreds of pages: admission notes, physician orders, nursing entries, imaging reports, medication logs, each timestamped,...

Do I actually have a case? That is the question almost everyone starts with after something goes wrong in a course of medical treatment, and it is the right question...

Long before a jury is ever seated, a great many medical malpractice disputes reach their conclusion around a conference table rather than in a courtroom. Lawyers exchange demands and offers,...

When a medical malpractice trial ends and one side is unhappy with the result, a natural question follows: can the case be tried again? The answer reveals a common misunderstanding...

Two years and five years. Those two numbers govern whether a Georgia medical malpractice claim can be brought at all, and the common mistake is to assume there is only...

A complaint is drafted, the filing fee is paid, and the lawsuit is entered on the court's docket. In an ordinary negligence case, that sequence is enough to open the...

Two patients walk into the same clinic with the same complaint. The first is examined, ordered a test, and sent home with a wrong answer written on the chart. The...