Busted But Not Responsible? Tips For Your Defense

If you've been arrested for a crime you didn't commit, you need to defend your legal rights. You have the right to an attorney who can help you present your case. After being wrongly accused of something myself, I learned quickly how to navigate the legal avenues to have my case dismissed. My attorney was a great resource for building the case, and because of my understanding of the law, it worked. I created this site to share what I learned along the way and some other great tips for others who have been wrongly accused and arrested for a crime.

What Does It Take To Sue For Medical Racism?

Law Blog

Although medical professionals are not supposed to discriminate against patients, the fact is, some people do not receive adequate care because of their ethnicity. This often leads to unnecessary suffering and other bad outcomes for those affected. However, suing for medical racism can be challenging for these two reasons.

Proving Discrimination Can Be Difficult

To prove you were a victim of medical racism, you must show the offender did not provide you with proper medical care because of your race or ethnicity. Unfortunately, discrimination can be hard to prove because it's not always as blatant as someone yelling racial epithets.

In fact, many times medical professionals don't realize they are behaving in a discriminatory way because their training was filled with inaccuracies that created the foundation for bias. For instance, a study conducted in 2016 found a large portion of sampled medical students believed black people experienced pain differently than white people, leading them to underrate and undertreat pain felt by African-American patients.

Thus, discriminatory medical care can be as subtle as a doctor prescribing lower doses of pain medication that don't provide relief because they don't believe the patient is in as much pain as they claim.

To prove your case in court, though, you need to show discrimination was the motivation for the defendant's actions (or lack of action). This can be done by having witnesses testify on the medical professional's problematic behavior or providing records (e.g. complaints) detailing a history of similar issues with other patients.

It's best to consult with an attorney who can help you secure the evidence you need to back up your claims.

Showing the Care was Substandard

A second issue you'll face in a medical discrimination lawsuit is you must show the care the medical professional provided did not meet the minimum standard for the industry. This may seem easy on the surface but, unfortunately, it's possible for someone's discriminatory behavior to still fall within the realm of acceptable care.

For instance, a doctor orders a highly effective lab test for one set of patients but a cheaper and less adequate one for other patients. Even though the second test may not detect medical issues as well as the first—thus leading to poorer outcomes for the second set of patients—it can be hard to prove this constitutes substandard care since there isn't a single test that can be held up as the definitive choice because both types of tests are acceptable to use.

You'll definitely need expert testimony from other professionals in the same industry who can point out discrepancies in the healthcare provider's treatment that meet the criteria for substandard care. An attorney can connect you to these experts that can help your case.

To learn more, reach out to a local personal injury attorney.

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16 September 2020