Medical Malpractice Terms and Definitions

Arbitration A process for deciding a legal dispute out of court; a substitute for an ordinary trial. Obstetrics Prenatal care requires collecting, tracking and analyzing a complex series of clinical data collected over several prenatal visits. 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. 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. Joint-and-several liability Liability in which each liable party is individually responsible for the entire obligation. Under joint-and-several liability, a plaintiff may choose to seek full damages from all, some, or any one of the parties alleged to have committed the injury. Confidentiality The principle that prohibits physicians from disclosing confidential comments made to them by patients unless required to do so by law. The law may require physicians to violate patient confidentiality if the patient poses a serious threat to his or her own health and the well-being or that of others. Causalgia Pain, usually burning, that is associated with autonomic changes -- change in color of the skin, change in temperature, change in sweating, swelling. Causalgia occurs after a nerve injury. Assumption of risk In the law of negligence, as a defense, a defendant's allegation that the injured plaintiff recognized the danger of the plaintiff's course of action but, nonetheless, willingly chose to risk such danger. Achondroplasia Achondroplasia is a genetic disorder of bone growth that is evident at birth. It affects about one in every 25,000 births and it occurs in all races and in both sexes. Its depiction in ancient Egyptian art makes it one of the oldest recorded birth defects. 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.

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

	Did You Know?
	Cosmetic surgery malpractice is a common occurrence Negligence happens when ill-equipped medical practitioners, like doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, and other healthcare professionals carry out such relatively simple cosmetic procedures like botox injections and forehead lifts. Negligence of this kind is criminal. It can happen to anyone.