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When Nurses Make Critical Errors

Nurses serve as the eyes and ears of doctors in patient care settings. When a nurse makes a mistake, it can cause a cascade of errors that can lead to patient injury or death.

At Dolan Dobrinsky Rosenblum Bluestein, LLP in Miami, our lawyers represent the victims of nurse and doctor negligence in South and Central Florida. We have secured millions of dollars in compensation for our clients, who include injured patients and family members of wrongful death victims.

Our Miami attorneys litigate a wide range of medical negligence cases involving nurse errors, including:

  • Failure to update a patient’s medical history;
  • Failure to assist patients when needed;
  • Administering the wrong drug or the wrong dose of a drug;
  • IV and catheter errors;
  • Failure to reposition an immobilized patient, resulting in bedsores;
  • Failure to respond to a patient emergency; and
  • Failure to communicate a change in the patient’s condition to the appropriate medical doctor.

Administering Incorrect Drugs

Nurses have a large portion of responsibility in administering medication to patients on behalf of doctors or other healthcare professionals. When it comes to administering medication, nurses need to be attentive and aware of how much and of what medication they need to provide a patient. If they misread a label, a drug, or a dosage, it could result in serious issues for the patient. The medical malpractice lawyers at Dolan Dobrinsky Rosenblum Bluestein, LLP represented the estate of a woman who died because of a nurse’s mistake. In that case, a nurse’s error resulted in her administering double to triple the prescribed dose of the anticoagulant Heparin to a man. The overdose killed the patient, whose family we represent in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Lack of Knowledge and Increased Responsibility

Some nurses may not understand the abbreviations used by those prescribing the medication. With over 200 used abbreviations relating to how the medication is to be administered, nurses can make mistakes, misunderstand an abbreviation, or not know an abbreviation. This lack of knowledge or surety can be another cause of errors in medical care. Many cases of nursing negligence can be traced to two trends in medical care. One is to place greater responsibility on nurses. Nurses now provide some types of patient care that used to be provided by doctors. In addition, deliberate understaffing has left nurses with more patients than they can adequately care for.

With the increased nurse responsibility sweeping across hospitals, many nurses may feel overwhelmed and not consistently perform at their best. Small mistakes such as improper or incorrect charting, reporting, sanitization of equipment or tools, and not keeping up proper hygiene can result in malpractice and can further infections or issues with patients. Nurses need to be fully attentive and thorough with their work to ensure their patients aren’t further compromised or injured during their receiving of medical care.

Reporting and Charting Issues

Taking detailed notes and properly filling out charts allows for other nurses and doctors to continue where the previous nurse left off. If a nurse isn’t attentive to detail and leaves illegible, incorrect notes about when certain medication was given to a patient, other nurses or doctors may not know how much or when to give the next dosage to the patient. Some may assume and give a dose they think the patient needs without double-checking or doing proper research ahead of time. This should never happen and if it does, you need to contact our medical malpractice attorneys as soon as possible. This type of malpractice can lead to strokes, heart attacks, more intense infection or sickness, and other sicknesses that may not have been present.

If You Or Someone You Love Has Been Injured

To talk to an experienced medical malpractice attorney about your case, call (305) 371-2692, , or complete our contact form. There is no charge for your initial consultation. We handle all personal injury and wrongful death cases on a contingency fee basis, which means there are no attorney fees unless we secure compensation on your behalf.

Contact Dolan Dobrinsky Rosenblum Bluestein Today

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