Medical Malpractice Terms and Definitions

Interrogatories A form of discovery in which one party submits a series of written questions to the other party, and to which the latter is bound to answer under oath. Medications Malpractice This category covers claims arising from inaccurate medication prescriptions, such as wrong medication or dosage level. Anesthesia A large class of claims related to anesthesia has resulted from cases where the anesthesiologist or anesthetist did not take a complete medical history of angina, myocardial infarction, recent upper respiratory infection, and asthma. Subrogation A process by which a third party is put in the place of a creditor so that the rights and securities of the creditor pass to that third person. Elder Abuse Is any "physical abuse, neglect, financial abuse, abandonment, isolation, abduction or other treatment with resulting in physical harm or pain or mental suffering, or the deprivation by a care custodian of goods or services that are necessary to avoid physical harm or mental suffering Collateral source rule Under this rule, compensation awarded to an injured party shall not be reduced by the amount of compensation available to him from his insurance company or other independent sources. Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate A cleft is a separation in a body structure. Clefts that occur in the oral-facial region often involve the lip, the roof of the mouth (hard palate) or the soft tissue in the back of the mouth (soft palate). Trigeminal Neuralgia A disorder of the trigeminal nerve that causes brief attacks of severe pain in the lips, cheeks, gums, or chin on one side of the face. Obstetrics Prenatal care requires collecting, tracking and analyzing a complex series of clinical data collected over several prenatal visits. Negligence Failure to exercise that degree of care that a reasonable person would exercise under the same circumstances. When that failure causes another person to suffer an injury or financial loss, that person may be entitled to just compensation through our civil justice system.

Please contact us if anyone you know has suffered from debilitating injuries due to medical malpractice in Michigan.

	Did You Know?
	Drug-switching practices happen and are very dangerous Another public-spirited drug giant, Merck, was forced to pay a settlement of $1.9 million to 17 states in 1995 for drug-switching practices involving its Medco subsidiary. Medco pharmacists, who had given excessively favorable treatment to Merck products, were thereafter required to reveal their Merck connection to their customers.