Medical Records

In the investigation of a medical malpractice case, one skill that’s really important that’s the ability to not only read the medical records and understand what they say but also to read between the lines and see the things that they don’t say. All kinds of things happen in operating rooms and in emergency rooms and in hospitals in general that aren’t recorded. And if a seasoned professional who has read many, many medical records and investigated many medical malpractice cases reviews those records often times what they can find are things that make a big difference in the case. Not long ago we were involved in a case where the behavior was so bad of the surgeon and we knew this to be an experienced surgeon, we immediately suspected, that without permission, a resident had been allowed to do the surgery. Now, that wasn’t written in the record in fact it was completely covered up. But we learned that indeed was the case by checking other hospital records because we knew what to look for.