Medical Doctor Malpractice in Georgia: Your Legal Rights
When a physician’s negligence causes you harm, the consequences can be life-altering. Medical doctor malpractice encompasses a wide range of failures, from misdiagnosis and surgical errors to improper treatment and failure to obtain informed consent. In Georgia, patients who suffer injury due to a physician’s breach of the standard of care have the right to pursue compensation for their losses. At the Wetherington Law Firm, we take on complex medical malpractice cases and fight to hold negligent doctors and their insurers accountable.
Common Forms of Physician Malpractice
- Misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis: Failing to correctly identify a condition like cancer, heart disease, or stroke in a timely manner, allowing the condition to progress beyond the point of effective treatment
- Surgical errors: Wrong-site surgery, wrong-patient surgery, retained surgical instruments, organ perforation, and nerve damage during surgery
- Medication errors: Prescribing the wrong medication, wrong dosage, or failing to account for known drug allergies and interactions
- Failure to treat: Correctly diagnosing a condition but failing to provide appropriate treatment or follow-up
- Birth injuries: Failure to monitor fetal distress, delayed C-section, improper use of forceps or vacuum extraction, and failure to diagnose gestational complications
- Failure to obtain informed consent: Performing a procedure without adequately explaining the risks, benefits, and alternatives (O.C.G.A. § 31-9-6.1)
- Premature discharge: Releasing a patient from care before they are medically stable
- Failure to order appropriate tests: Not ordering diagnostic tests that a reasonable physician would have ordered given the patient’s symptoms
Georgia Legal Requirements
Standard of Care (O.C.G.A. § 51-1-27): A physician must exercise that degree of care and skill ordinarily employed by the medical profession generally under similar conditions and like surrounding circumstances.
Statute of Limitations (O.C.G.A. § 9-3-71): Two years from the date of the negligent act. The statute of repose is five years, meaning no claim can be brought after five years regardless of when the injury was discovered. For foreign objects left in the body, a one-year discovery rule applies.
Expert Affidavit (O.C.G.A. § 9-11-9.1): A malpractice complaint must be accompanied by an expert affidavit from a physician competent to testify that at least one negligent act occurred and was the proximate cause of injury.
Informed Consent (O.C.G.A. § 31-9-6.1): Georgia codifies the informed consent requirement, mandating that physicians explain the general nature of the procedure, common risks, and available alternatives.
Compensation Under Georgia Law
Under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-4, physician malpractice victims can recover past and future medical expenses for corrective treatment and ongoing care, lost wages and diminished earning capacity, pain and suffering (physical and emotional), loss of consortium for the spouse, and wrongful death damages under O.C.G.A. § 51-4-2. Georgia has no cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases since the Supreme Court struck down the cap in Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery v. Nestlehutt (2010). Punitive damages under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-5.1 may be available in egregious cases.
Why Medical Malpractice Cases Require Experienced Attorneys
Medical malpractice cases are among the most complex and expensive types of litigation. They require expert medical witnesses, extensive medical record review, and substantial financial investment in case development. Insurance companies for physicians and hospitals have vast resources dedicated to defending these claims. The Wetherington Law Firm has the financial strength and legal expertise to go toe-to-toe with the largest medical malpractice insurers.
Contact the Wetherington Law Firm
If you were harmed by a doctor’s negligence in Georgia, contact us today for a free consultation. We work on contingency — you pay nothing unless we win.
Call now: (404) 888-1111 | Free consultation