A 28-year old woman died during a cosmetic surgery procedure on May 10, 2019 at MIA Aesthetics. According to reports, the victim, identified as Danea Plasencia, died while she was undergoing a Brazilian Butt Lift.
According to the doctor, the victim was being transferred from one table to another when she turned blue. It was around this moment that she went into cardiac arrest. The medical team tried to revive her through CPR but it was ineffective and the victim was later transported to the Baptist Miami Hospital, where she died.
As of the time of writing, an investigation is still being conducted and the cause of the victim’s death still cannot be determined. It’s still unclear what went wrong with the procedure, but what’s completely clear are the consequences should the medical team be found to have had lapses in ensuring that they are adhering to medical standards.
Medical Malpractice, Defined
Medical malpractice is the failure of medical professionals to adhere to general procedural standards agreed upon by the professional medical community.
The primary defining assumption of medical malpractice is that there was negligence on the part of the medical professionals which led to the injury or death of the patient.
Medical Malpractice Penalties
Depending on the gravity of the offense, a medical malpractice violation could be penalized by a fine (which scales higher depending on how bad the neglect of duty was.), the suspension or revocation of the professional’s license, and even jail time.
A medical malpractice lawsuit is also the legal course of action taken in order for victims or the family of the victim (in cases where the malpractice caused death) to claim damages.
Conditions
For a victim to be able to claim medical malpractice, there are three conditions that must be met:
- That there was a duty of care
- That there was a neglect of duty in that care
- That the neglect was a direct cause of the injury
These three elements need to be established before a victim is able to claim damages because of medical standards, as well as training, varies between medical professionals.
Nurses are not trained the way surgeons are, much like how a pediatrician is not traited the way a neurosurgeon is. Each field of medicine has a different set of standards and practices, and it can be difficult to define boundaries between an honest mistake and downright negligence.
It is exactly for this reason that you need professional help from specialists, like these Seattle malpractice lawyers to help you establish the three aforementioned elements.
These elements are also in place to protect medical professionals from undue and unwarranted legal attacks by distraught victims. It’s important to keep in mind that not all lives can be saved, yet it is the duty of medical professionals to do whatever they can to save or to preserve the life of a patient.
Failure to do so does not necessarily mean that there was malpractice involved. The last thing you want is to ruin the career of an innocent person.