Nurses play a critical role in modern medicine. For many patients, their nurse is the primary point of contact at a doctor’s office or hospital, and patients rely on nurses to properly screen their symptoms and attend to any complications experienced after treatment.
At Hersh Kirtman Injury Law, we have helped many patients injured when nurses fail to provide the care we have come to expect and which Florida law requires. If you contact us today, we can review the circumstances surrounding your injuries and analyze whether you have valid legal claims.
Examples of Mistakes Nurses Make
A nursing error can cause a patient’s condition to worsen. Some common nursing errors include:
- Errors administering medication, e.g., forgetting to give a patient her pills or giving the wrong amount
- Failure to follow a doctor’s orders
- Neglecting patients with symptoms of distress
- Improper use of needles
- Failure to follow safety precautions
A nursing error is any mistake where the nurse fails to follow the prevailing standard of care for nurses in similar situations. For example, a patient who cries out that they feel chest pain should receive a nurse’s immediate attention, and the nurse should notify a doctor. It may be malpractice to simply ignore a patient in this amount of distress.
Why Nurses Make Mistakes
Nurses receive specialized education and/or training so they can perform their jobs well. Errors typically stem from certain well-known factors, such as:
- Understaffing. The more patients a nurse is responsible for, the more likely he or she will perform a job poorly.
- Increased responsibilities. Nurses are required to fill many roles in the modern hospital and can quickly become overwhelmed. Cost-cutting is often behind the increased responsibilities nurses must shoulder.
- Poor training. A hospital might have failed to train nurses properly on the right procedures.
- Advanced technology. Increased reliance on technology has improved many patient outcomes, but some nurses find technology too confusing.
- Negligence. Like other professionals, nurses can fall victim to carelessness—and patients suffer.
- Fatigue. A tired nurse is more likely to make a mistake. Some nurses pull double shifts, often due to understaffing.
- Substance abuse. To deal with the stress of a job, some nurses turn to chemical substances just to get through the day. Addiction of this sort can easily cause errors.
- Negligent hiring. A hospital might have failed to check references or criminal history when hiring nurses and ends up hiring a dangerous individual.
For injured patients and their families, the cause of a medical error might be of little importance. All they know is that their loved one went into the hospital and emerged even sicker. Let our legal team investigate whether a nurse or other professional made an error which compromised your care or the care of a loved one.
Connect with Our Boca Raton Nursing Error Lawyer Today
There is no excuse for medical malpractice, and injured patients should contact Hersh Kirtman Injury Law as soon as possible to learn how we can help. It is possible to bring a malpractice claim for nursing error, so give us a call to schedule a time to discuss your case.
