Medical Malpractice Terms and Definitions

Collateral source rule Under this rule, compensation awarded to an injured party shall not be reduced by the amount of compensation available to him from his insurance company or other independent sources. Stipulation An agreement, admission or concession made in a judicial proceeding by the parties or their attorneys, thus relieving a party of its obligation to produce evidence in support of an argument or allegation. Medications Malpractice This category covers claims arising from inaccurate medication prescriptions, such as wrong medication or dosage level. Medical Treatment Lawsuits related to medical treatment are triggered by a number of causes, including failure to select the correct treatment or to monitor or follow up on the patient's condition. Acute Pain Pain that has a known cause and occurs for a limited time. Acute pain usually responds to treatment with analgesic medications and treatment of the cause of the pain. Comparative negligence The doctrine of comparing degrees of fault among the responsible parties. Allodynia When pain is caused by something that does not normally cause pain (such as clothing touching the skin). Medical negligence Failure of a physician or other medical personnel to meet the standards of conduct for duties relating to the medical profession. Those standards are based on what a reasonable person with the requisite knowledge and skills would or would not do. Noneconomic damages Damages payable for items other than monetary losses, such as pain and suffering. The term technically includes punitive damages, but those are typically discussed separately. Assumption of risk In the law of negligence, as a defense, a defendant's allegation that the injured plaintiff recognized the danger of the plaintiff's course of action but, nonetheless, willingly chose to risk such danger.

Please contact us if anyone you know has suffered from debilitating injuries due to medical malpractice in Nevada.

	Did You Know?
	Drug-switching practices happen and are very dangerous Another public-spirited drug giant, Merck, was forced to pay a settlement of $1.9 million to 17 states in 1995 for drug-switching practices involving its Medco subsidiary. Medco pharmacists, who had given excessively favorable treatment to Merck products, were thereafter required to reveal their Merck connection to their customers.