Welcome to Pritzker | Ruohonen

Nursing Malpractice

Assisting You with Your Nursing Malpractice Lawsuit

At Pritzker | Ruohonen & Associates, P.A. we have the experience and resources to take on important and challenging nurse malpractice cases. We are a national malpractice law firm, and lawyers at Pritzker | Ruohonen have been interviewed by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Lawyers USA and other publications. Attorneys Fred Pritzker, Rich Ruohonen and Elliot Olsen have been named "Super Lawyers" by Law & Politics magazine. Fred Pritzker is also listed several editions, including the most recent, of The Best Lawyers in America. To contact a lawyer at Pritzker | Ruohonen, please call 1-888-377-8900 (toll-free), e-mail our lawyers, or submit our free case consultation form.

Nurse Malpractice Law: Special Laws That Apply to Nursing Malpractice Lawsuits

You should also be aware of some special laws that apply to nurse malpractice cases:

  • Statute of limitations: This is a law that requires commencement of a nurse malpractice case within a specific time period. If the nurse malpractice case is not filed within that time period it will be barred regardless of its merit. Because the time period is often very short and exceptions apply, it is very important to consult with an experienced attorney as soon as possible.
  • Expert affidavit: In some states, before commencement of a nurse malpractice case the party bringing the claim must provide a written document signed by a medical expert confirming that nurse malpractice was committed and that it was a direct cause of the claimant's injuries. The format and timing of the affidavit are critical.

Nurse Malpractice Legal Issues

You may be able to receive compensation for your loss. However, you need to know that a nursing malpractice lawsuit can be extremely complicated. The issues could include negligence on the part of any of the nurses or doctors involved. The hospital or nursing home may also be negligent if policies and protocols were not clear or properly enforced.
 
Causation is also a significant issue.  For example, for patients who received a gastric bypass at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, California, who were notified that they are at risk for HIV and hepatitis, even if one or more of the patients test positive for HIV or hepatitis, a malpractice attorney would have to prove that the gastric bypass surgery was the cause of the HIV and/or hepatitis.  Read about the Scripps Hospital patients at risk because a nurse did not sterilize the device used to perform the gastric bypass surgeries.

The Nursing Shortage and Nurse Malpractice

The nursing shortage is causing serious problems in our health care system. A recent Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) article concluded that patients in hospitals where nurses had heavier workloads had a 31% higher risk of dying. An analysis of 1,609 serious errors reported to the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) in the last five years involved nurse under-staffing.

Medication errors are one of the most common preventable mistakes that a nurse can make. A recent report in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that one in five doses of medication dispensed at 36 hospitals and nursing homes around the country was either the wrong drug or the wrong dose, or given at the wrong time to the wrong patient.

Some health care professionals simply do not wash their hands enough. The Center for Disease Control estimates that 2 million infections and 90,000 deaths are caused by infections that patients pick up in hospitals every year, and half of these infections could be prevented by proper hand washing.

Nurse Malpractice Attorney: Contact Information
and Free Consultation

If you would like a free consultation about your nurse malpractice case or any other malpractice case, call Pritzker | Ruohonen toll-free at 1-888-377-8900, email us at info@pritzkerlaw.com, or fill in our online consultation form. We are a national law firm with clients throughout the United States and offices are in Minneapolis, Minnesota.


Free Case Consultation





Logos

Medical Malpractice Topics

Pain and Suffering

Rich Ruohonen recently chaired a legal seminar on obtaining compensation for pain and suffering in a personal injury case. Rich uses his knowledge, experience, and reputation to maximize recoveries for clients.

 

$950,000 Recovery for Failure to Diagnose Septic Arthritis

Pritzker | Ruohonen attorneys Fred Pritzker and Elliot Olsen recently secured a $950,000 recovery on behalf of a young man who developed septic arthritis eight days following knee surgery.

Pritzker | Ruohonen Newsletter

Pritzker | Ruohonen is now publishing its newsletters online. Sign up today to receive the newsletter via email. Read our newsletters: Spring 2008 and Summer 2008.

 

Dental Malpractice: Oral Surgery and Burn Injuries

The FDA has recently stated that poorly-maintained dental equipment has resulted in severe burns. These cases could involve both dental malpractice and product liability claims.

Hospital Malpractice Lawsuits

Hospital malpractice includes any type of medical negligence that occurs in a hospital setting, including errors by doctors, nurses, technicians and other hospital staff.

 

Neurosurgery Errors

Surgical errors are common and can lead to serious injury or death. In an article in the medical journal Neurosurgery that reported on a study of 1108 elective neurosurgical procedures, a neurosurgeon recorded 2684 errors in 87.1% of the cases. 22.6% of the errors were considered major. 78.5% of the errors were deemed preventable.