Ophthalmology Negligence

Ophthalmologists specialize in providing medical treatment for the eyes. They are trained to do a wide range of tasks for eye care, including performing eye surgeries. Some are board-certified, and some have sub-specialties, such as a specialty in treating glaucoma, providing ophthalmic plastic surgery, or treating a diseased cornea. In other cases, they perform corrective surgery or lid repair surgery or place artificial eyes with orbital surgery. Unfortunately, like other doctors and professionals, ophthalmologists can make mistakes, and a medical malpractice lawyer may be needed to help patients assert their rights. The experienced Ocala ophthalmology negligence lawyers at the Dean Law Firm may be able to help.

When an ophthalmologist makes a mistake, the outcome can be minor damage or the need for a procedure, but it can also be blindness. Some eye operations and procedures such as LASIK are elective, but that does not change the fact that they can result in serious, permanent injuries. There are many different kinds of mistakes that can be made. For example, an ophthalmologist might fail to get a medical history that would tell them whether the patient should get a particular surgery. They might make a mistake during a surgical procedure or fail to treat complications after the operation appropriately.

Injuries that could arise from ophthalmology negligence include hemorrhaging, dry eye, blurry vision, blindness, lack of contrast sensitivity, or retinal detachment. In order to establish professional negligence, an ophthalmology attorney in the Ocala area will need to show that it is more likely than not that the ophthalmologist owed a specific standard of care, they breached this standard of care, and they caused actual damages as a result of the breach.

We will need to retain an ophthalmology expert to review your medical records, as well as what happened, to determine what the standard of care in your case was and whether the ophthalmologist breached that standard. The expert must either specialize as an ophthalmologist or have devoted professional time in the three years prior to the injury to active clinical practice in ophthalmology, the instruction of students of ophthalmology, or a clinical research program affiliated with an accredited school of ophthalmology or accredited residency or clinical research program in this area.

Simply because you wound up with a bad outcome does not necessarily mean that there was negligence. Instead, you will need to prove that what your ophthalmologist did was the legal cause of your injuries and also that the actions were a breach of the professional standard of care. Your insurer's reimbursement policies and associated records or testimony cannot be used as evidence that your ophthalmologist made a mistake.

In Florida, the prevailing professional standard of care for an ophthalmologist is the level of treatment, skill, and care that is recognized as appropriate and acceptable by reasonably prudent and similar health care providers, such as another ophthalmologist. The injury suffered cannot have been within the necessary or reasonably foreseeable outcomes of a diagnostic, medicinal, or surgical procedure that is considered a medical intervention if the intervention was carried out in accordance with the professional standard of a reasonably prudent ophthalmologist.

If you successfully establish ophthalmology negligence, you may be able to recover monetary damages for past and future medical treatment, loss of past and future income, and pain and suffering. There may be a loss of enjoyment of life with the loss of sight, and it is possible to recover damages for this as well. When a patient dies due to this negligence, their family may be able to recover funeral and burial costs, as well as other intangible damages as a result of the wrongful death.

Your sight is precious to you. It is important that medical providers use reasonable care when treating or performing surgery on your eyes. At the Dean Law Firm, our experienced injury attorneys can represent you in a medical malpractice lawsuit. Contact us online or call us at 352-387-8700 for a free appointment. Our Ocala ophthalmology negligence attorneys serve people who have been subjected to medical malpractice in The Villages, Crystal River, and other communities in Citrus, Levy, Sumter, Marion, and Lake Counties.