Legal Question in Personal Injury in Arizona
Ability to sue a therapist for negligence
Can I sue a therapist for damage to my wrist as a result of an overly-aggressive program. I had right wrist reduction surgery September 24, 1999, and on December 1 (after two and a half weeks of therapy (8 sessions)), my wrist gave way resulting in tilted screws and a lot of pain in my wrist and my arm (which I am still experiencing). Before I went to therapy I was happy with the surgery and the fact you couldn't tell anything had been done to my wrist. Now my wrist looks as it did before surgery. The doctor is covering for her and is ignoring the problem. There is no mention of the December 1 incident in my medical records and it is impossible to get a second opinion based on the information he provides in my records. I do have x-rays before and after therapy though which indicate what happened.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Ability to sue a therapist for negligence
Your injury may have occured during therapy, but can it be proven that the therapist was treating you out of the scope of practice or negligently? Doctors treat patients on standards of care and by average recovery time. Unfortunately, the doctor has no real way to determine a specific recovery time for each patient. Medicine is inexact science that quite often requires trial and error type of treatment, meaning if one treament doesn't work then another treatment is tried. The unforunate reality is that you apparently needed more recovery time than the average patient with an injury such as your's. The doctor unfortunately had no way of knowing exactly how much rcovery time you might need. Can we prove negligence against the doctor? Probably not.
Most malpractice cases go on permanent debilitating injuries and whether or not proof of gross negligence can be obtained. Pursuant to the information you provided, it would be difficult, at best, to prove a case of malpractice against your physical therapist or doctor for that matter.
I understand that this probably does nothing to ease your suffering and frustration, but if you have further questions or concerns, feel free to E-mail your questions.
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