Medical malpractice claims are very challenging.  The presumptions in favor of the medical provider are pretty difficult to overcome.  It is not enough that you are unhappy with your medical care.  There are several important elements that you must prove to establish a medical malpractice claim.  And these are not always easy to prove.

The first and perhaps most obvious element is the presence of a doctor-patient relationship.  This requires that you hired the doctor for medical treatment and that the doctor did in fact provide you with medical treatment.  This issue comes up when there is the presence of consulting physicians who did not treat you directly but rather provided consultative services to the treating doctor.  

The second and most important element that must be proved is that the doctor acted negligently.  Medical negligence can be very difficult to prove.  It must be shown that the doctor did not act in accordance with the standards of the medical profession.  In other words, the doctor did not act as reasonable and competent doctor would under similar circumstances.  To prove that a reasonable and competent doctor would have acted differently, it is necessary to obtain an opinion from an expert in the relevant medical practice area.  This medical expert is generally also a doctor and can be quite expensive making this challenge both technically difficult and very expensive.  Often, the medical malpractice claim will end here either because the injured person cannot obtain the services of an expert or in the alternative, the expert simply cannot find that the doctor acted negligently under the standards of the medical profession.  

The patient must then establish that negligence led to injuries.  If there are no injuries, then there can be no claims no matter how incompetent the doctor.  The patient’s injuries and damages might include disfigurement, permanent impairment, physical pain, emotional pain & stress, future medical expenses and lost income.
 
Finally, the patient must prove that it was the doctor’s negligence that caused those injuries.  This is not as simple as it sounds in many cases.  Cases of medical malpractice often involve patients that were already injured or sick at the time of the negligent treatment.  It can be difficult unraveling the cause of subsequent injury or illness.  For instance, a cancer patient who has received negligent medical treatment may later die.    In such situation, it could be difficult to prove that the medical negligence caused or even hastened the death of the patient and not the cancer itself.   The doctor will likely argue that there was nothing that could be done to save the patient.  It is easy to see the necessity of a medical expert to prove otherwise.