If you or a loved one has suffered a significant permanent injury after a visit to the dentist, you probably have questions about what to do next. The first thing you should do is speak with an Iowa medical malpractice attorney.
Why Should I Speak with an Iowa Medical Malpractice Lawyer?
Dentists can be held accountable for medical malpractice, just like medical doctors. If you or a loved one has been harmed by a dentist, you may be able to get compensation for your harms and losses.
There are several ways dental malpractice can occur. Some examples include:
- When a dentist delays or denies necessary treatment
- When a dentist fails to diagnose a life-threatening condition
- When a dentist cuts or otherwise injures nerves in the face, tongue, or jaw
- When a dentist extracts a tooth and the patient suffers significant harm from an infection
- When a dentist extracts the wrong tooth
When Should You Sue an Iowa Dentist for Malpractice?
Your satisfaction is not necessarily guaranteed when you visit the dentist or oral surgeon. That means you can’t sue them just because the results are not what you wanted or were promised. In order to sue a dentist for malpractice, your Iowa medical malpractice attorney must prove that your dentist was negligent and that their negligence directly led to your injury.
What negligence means in this situation is that your dentist failed to do what an average dentist in their position would have done, or they did something that an average dentist would not have done. Understanding how negligence can affect your case can be confusing, which is why we recommend speaking with an experienced dental malpractice attorney.
Proving Your Dental Malpractice Case
Like any Iowa medical malpractice case, dental malpractice can be expensive to prove. Because dentists receive specialized training, only another dentist with the same experience and knowledge as the one who hurt you can analyze the situation and say that malpractice has occurred.
A knowledgeable medical malpractice attorney can find the right expert for your case. Your medical records need to be ordered and reviewed by this expert so they can determine whether dental malpractice occurred. Keep in mind that experts are expensive to hire. That is one of the reasons why we are selective with the medical malpractice cases we take.
If you have been permanently injured by a dentist or oral surgeon, you need to speak with an attorney that is experienced in dental malpractice. Call RSH Legal at 1-319-774-1783 today.