The reasons podiatry patients sue their doctors are very much the same as they would any other type of physician.
If a procedure is recommended, then, as patients, we want to know what the benefits of having the procedure done are. We also want to have a realistic expectation of the potential adverse effects of moving forward with it. If some kind of surgical error occurs, then, as patients, we want to trust our doctors enough to tell us what happened.
Podiatrists often put themselves in a bad position to get sued, according to some legal experts, because they never update their intake forms to ask specific questions relevant to foot health. Instead, many use generic medical questionnaires that may give a podiatrist a better idea as to the patient’s overall health, but doesn’t delve into problems they’re having with their feet.
In other instances, podiatrists get sued because they fail to properly document the concerns that their patients have. Even if they do, they fail to perform more thorough examinations or testing to reconfirm a patient’s suspected diagnosis or to treat the underlying problem.
Oftentimes, doctors go into too little detail, and sometimes provide no justification in a patient’s records as to what about a particular X-ray led them to recommend a certain treatment or procedure. Some legal experts contend that one of the telltale signs of a unnecessary surgery is if a doctor fails to take necessary imaging to show a problem exists.
It’s because of the fear of being sued that many doctors nowadays take both before and after pictures as a point of reference of what the patient was previously dealing with and what the outcome ended up like. They’ll often use these images to justify their decision-making if they’re sued.
If you suspect that the surgery that your podiatrist performed on you was unwarranted, then a Chicago attorney can advise you of your right to file a lawsuit in your case.