What You Should Know About Dental Malpractice
When it comes to malpractice, many people think about medical and hospital malpractice, but what about incidents that occur in your dental office? Personal injuries can also occur due to negligence from a dentist, oral surgeon, or other staff members and might require you to file a lawsuit. Here is some important information about dental malpractice lawsuits.
What is dental malpractice?
Dental malpractice occurs when your dentist fails to provide the level of care they are expected to. However, not all incidents that occur in the dentist's office will be classified as malpractice. It must be due to a negligent or purposeful act that led to pain and suffering, economic loss, or other types of damage. For example, if your dentist was filing down a weakened tooth to prepare it for a crown, but it cracked, that is not malpractice. It is simply a risk of preparing a tooth for a crown if it is already susceptible to damage. However, if the dentist pulled the wrong tooth during an extraction, that is considered negligence.
How can the dental malpractice be proved?
Just like other malpractice cases, the proof is going to be your best friend or worst enemy. You must be able to show that due to the dentist's negligence, you experienced a trauma, injury, or illness. If the wrong tooth was extracted, it should be easy enough to prove that the dentist knew what tooth to remove and didn't pay close enough attention, which led to removing the wrong tooth. In other cases, you may need to find witnesses who can attest to the negligence. Another way to get proof is to ask your lawyer to find an expert in the dental field that can look at the problem that occurred with your tooth.
What can you sue the dentist for?
There are a few ways to sue for damages in regards to a dental malpractice case, which depend on the situation. For example, if another tooth was removed, you still need to get the original tooth removed. You can sue for the time away from work involved in going through another extraction, the pain and suffering from dealing with multiple, unnecessary extractions, and the costs involved in these pricey procedures. In other cases, there might also be emotional turmoil experienced due to the dentist's negligence.
How do you file a lawsuit?
If you believe you have a malpractice case against your dentist, the first thing you should do is compile the evidence. You also need to have a good personal injury lawyer (such as one from the Law Office Of John J Barrow) that specializes in malpractice cases. They will help gather additional witnesses or evidence you need and help you through the process of filing the lawsuit.
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