A medical expert witness contributes to court cases by providing information about the complex and sometimes distressing field of medicine. These medical professionals participate in many kinds of trials; however, they most commonly work in medical malpractice suits.

Medical malpractice occurs when medical professionals willfully or accidentally deviate from standard procedures, resulting in injury or death of the patient. If you need an expert medical witness, specialists in various fields can bring accurate information to your side in a malpractice trial, including these four most common types:

1. Medication Errors

Using the wrong medication or not receiving the right medication can cause problems from annoying side effects to death. Improper dosage is the most common medication error. Other grounds for malpractice include prescribing or administering the wrong medication and failing to consider a medication’s interactions with medical conditions or other medications. Pharmacological experts can assess a medication’s role in an illness or death.

2. Misdiagnosis

Errors in diagnosis can result in patients receiving the wrong treatment or no treatment. Serious conditions like cancer and heart disease could go undetected for a long time, time which could have been used to treat the illness before it was too late. Physicians could rule out a patient’s disease because unexpected symptoms are either present or absent. Diagnosticians will work to determine whether or not a typical doctor should have correctly diagnosed the particular condition involved.

3. Pregnancy/Birth Injuries

Errors in pregnancy care include failure to diagnose a pregnancy-related condition in the mother and failure to discover or disclose a birth defect. Childbirth injuries include failure to notice the umbilical cord wrapped around the baby and improper procedures that cause cerebral palsy or paralysis. OB/GYN specialists can provide valuable information in these malpractice cases.

4. Surgery

Surgery malpractice cases encompass errors before, during, and after surgery. These errors include operating on the wrong area, surgical devices left in the body, and improper post-op procedures that fail to help the patient recover. Incorrectly-administered anesthesia can also be dangerous and lead to a malpractice suit. Medical witnesses are available for all surgical specialties.