Chicago Medical Malpractice Attorney

I am an experienced medical malpractice lawyer, providing legal services to Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. Since my wife is a physician (see biography), I am extremely sensitive to screening possible medical malpractice cases for merit. Aside from that, particularly amidst all the hue and cry to limit lawsuits against physicians in the name of “tort reform,” it only makes good business sense to bring only medical malpractice cases that have merit. Literally hundreds of thousands of dollars can be spent to prosecute a medical malpractice case. Under Illinois law a certificate of merit must be filed with the complaint that establishes a physician has reviewed the case and found it to have merit.

It is important to act quickly if you suspect that you or a loved one has been injured or killed as a result of Medical Malpractice. If you require the advice of a Chicago medical malpractice attorney, contact Plouff Law today.

Our Chicago Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Specialties include:

Medication Error Lawsuits

• Negligently prescribing the wrong medication
• Illegibly writing the prescription so that the wrong medication is given
• The wrong dosage or strength of drugs
• Prescribing a polypharmacy regimen of multiple medications that dangerously interact with one another
• Misuse of Tussionex Prescription Cough Medicine
• Overdoses of Cough and Cold Products in Children
• Acetaminophen overdoses
• Misuse of Fentanyl Patches
• Overdoses with Methadone
• Mix-ups and confusion of Edetate Disodium and Edetate Calcium Disodium medications as both are sometimes written “EDTA”
• Prescribing a polypharmacy regimen of multiple medications that dangerously interact with one another
• Mislabeling and labeling confusion mix-ups between medications
• Any medication error due to negligence.

Medical malpractice cases frequently involve a failure to diagnose a life threatening condition. When the missed diagnosis is a rare one, then you will hear the defense argument, “when you hear hoof beats, do you think horses or zebras.” This doctor thought horses so the defense argues that, while error or mistake may in hindsight have been made, the doctor did not commit malpractice.

There are ways to take on these arguments. One is just to appeal to the good old fashioned common sense of jurors. In a recent case resulting in a $11.11 million jury verdict in Cook County, Illinois, the board-certified emergency department physician failed to diagnose a brain infection. The patient presented with widespread ear and nasal infections and then could not walk out of the emergency department, as she had been discharged by the physician. The doctor diagnosed the ear and nasal infections but did not recognize bacterial meningitis as a cause of the brain infection. There was a possibility that the patient had a brain infection. As Plouff told the jury, “Probably isn’t good enough when possibly can kill you.” Birth injury cases are a good example of how it is better to be safe than sorry.