Indiana Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

Indiana residents are injured and killed every year as a result of prescription medication errors. Indiana's experience is mirrored on a national level. A 2006 report from the National Academy of Science's Institute fo Medicine estimated that 1.5 million people every year are harmed by medication errors in the United States. The issue received national attention in late 2007 when actor Dennis Quaid's newborn twins received accidental overdoses of a blood-thinning drug.

 Accidental overdose is one of the more common medication errors.  For example, a patient who is supposed to receive .5 milligrams of a drug instead receives 5 milligrams because the person administering the drug does not see the decimal point. These errors can also result from faulty labeling of the drug by the drug's manufacturer.  Medication errors also occur when the prescribing physician fails to take into account possible interactions between the drug being prescribed and medications the patient is already receiving.  

The law firm of Garau Germano Hanley & Pennington, P.C., has handled claims involving medication errors for patients throughout the state of Indiana.  If you or a loved one has been injured as a result of a medication error, please contact us.

Patients pursuing medical malpractice claims in Indiana and elsewhere face long odds of winning at trial. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, patients won only 22.7% of all medical malpractice cases tried in the United States in 2005.  In contrast, plaintiffs won 56% of all general civil litigation trials in the same period.  (This would include claims from automobile accidents, animal attacks, premises claims, etc.)

What accounts for this low win percentage in medical malpractice cases? One factor is that the strongest medical malpractice cases usually don't go to trial. Those cases are typically settled before trial.  Because the malpractice insurers control the purse strings, they control which cases go to trial and which cases settle. Naturally, they choose to take to trial the cases which they believe they have the best chance of winning.

Another factor is that juries are reluctant to believe that doctors or hospitals make mistakes.  Doctors continue to rank among America's most admired professionals. Additionally, because jurors depend on physicians for their own health care, they often choose not to accept the notion that their health is in the hands of someone who is fallible.

Because of the difficulties in winning medical malpractice claims, the selection of a lawyer to pursue the claim is vitally important.  The attorneys at Garau Germano Hanley & Pennington, P.C. have the experience and skill necessary to beat the odds in medical malpractice cases.