Medical Malpractice Terms and Definitions

Tort Liability The defendant must owe a legal duty to the victim, the defendant breached that duty, the breach was the cause of an injury to the victim, there must be an injury. In most cases, there must be a physical or financial injury to the victim, but sometimes emotional distress, embarrassment, or dignitary harms are adequate for recovery. Terminal sedation Terminal sedation is the use of high doses of sedatives to relieve extremes of physical distress. Its purpose is to render the patient unconscious to relieve suffering until the patient dies from his or her disease processes and their complications. Delirium A disturbance of the brain function that causes confusion and changes in alertness, attention, thinking and reasoning, memory, emotions, sleeping patterns and coordination. Comparative negligence The doctrine of comparing degrees of fault among the responsible parties. Collateral source rule Under this rule, compensation awarded to an injured party shall not be reduced by the amount of compensation available to him from his insurance company or other independent sources. Interrogatories A form of discovery in which one party submits a series of written questions to the other party, and to which the latter is bound to answer under oath. Medical Practice Act A statute of a US state or jurisdiction that outlines the scope of practice for physicians and the responsibility of the medical board to regulate that practice. The primary responsibility and obligation of a state medical board is to protect the public through proper licensing and regulation of physicians and, in some jurisdictions, other health care professionals. Anesthesia A large class of claims related to anesthesia has resulted from cases where the anesthesiologist or anesthetist did not take a complete medical history of angina, myocardial infarction, recent upper respiratory infection, and asthma. Statute of limitations A statute specifying the period of time after the occurrence of an injury--or, in some cases, after the discovery of the injury or of its cause--during which any suit must be filed. Miscarriage When circumstances cause the mother's body to react to a problem in the pregnancy. This may cause bleeding, cramping, and will ultimately cause the loss of the pregnancy.

Please contact us if anyone you know has suffered from debilitating injuries due to medical malpractice in Georgia.

	Did You Know?
	Patients die in hospitals and in care from negligence Between 44,000 and 98,000 people die in hospitals annually each year due to preventable medical errors, the Institute of Medicine found.