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Legal Help for the Injured
Medical errors harm patients every day, and the people harmed rarely know it happened until the damage is done. Whether you were prescribed the wrong medication, subjected to a surgery gone wrong, or sent home with a condition that should have been caught, the injuries can be life-altering. Fortunately, victims of medical malpractice can take action. If you have been harmed by a provider’s negligence, an Akron medical malpractice lawyer at KNR can help you pursue compensation through a personal injury claim.
Call (330) 869-9007 to find out how our Akron medical malpractice lawyers can help you.
We're Award-Winning & Highly-Skilled Attorneys
At Kisling, Nestico & Redick, our skilled Akron medical malpractice attorneys understand how overwhelming these situations can be. With the cost of medical bills and significant pain and suffering, you may not know where to start. Our dedicated legal team of Akron lawyers, backed by the firm’s Ohio medical malpractice lawyers statewide, can help. We will handle all of the legal aspects of your case while you focus on recovery.
Most healthcare professionals do their jobs carefully. Medical malpractice is what happens when one does not: a doctor, nurse, pharmacist, technician, or facility falls below the accepted standard of care and a patient is harmed as a result. These are the kinds of cases our Akron office handles most often.
When a doctor is unsure what is wrong, the right answer is more testing, a specialist referral, or close follow-up. A misdiagnosis happens when the doctor assigns the wrong condition instead, and a delayed diagnosis happens when the right condition is caught too late to treat it well. Either way, the patient loses time, and with cancer, stroke, heart attack, and infection, time is the whole case.
A misdiagnosis claim turns on what a competent doctor would have done with the same symptoms and test results. Cancer is misdiagnosed more often than most patients expect; how often cancer is misdiagnosed surprises most people, and the records usually show the warning signs that were missed.
Surgical errors include operating on the wrong site or the wrong patient, damaging organs, nerves, or blood vessels during the procedure, leaving instruments or sponges inside the body, and failing to manage bleeding or infection afterward. Some of these are “never events” that should not happen under any circumstances.
Not every bad surgical outcome is malpractice, because every surgery carries known risks. The question is whether the surgeon and the surgical team met the standard of care before, during, and after the operation, and whether you were properly told the risks before consenting.
Medication errors happen at every step: a doctor prescribes the wrong drug or dose, a pharmacist fills it incorrectly, a nurse administers it to the wrong patient or at the wrong time, or nobody checks for an interaction with something the patient already takes.
The harm ranges from a missed course of treatment to overdose, organ damage, and death. Pharmacy and hospital records usually document exactly what was ordered and what was given, which makes these among the more provable malpractice claims.
Anesthesia mistakes include too much or too little anesthetic, failure to review the patient’s history and allergies, failure to monitor vital signs during the procedure, and intubation errors that cut off oxygen. Because the patient is unconscious, these errors can go unnoticed for critical minutes.
The consequences can be severe: brain injury from lack of oxygen, cardiac events, nerve damage from positioning, and anesthesia awareness, where a patient is conscious but paralyzed during surgery. The anesthesia record, taken minute by minute, is the central piece of evidence.
A child is most vulnerable during pregnancy, labor, and delivery. Birth injuries include failing to monitor fetal distress, delaying a necessary C-section, misusing forceps or vacuum extraction, mismanaging the mother’s conditions during pregnancy, and errors in the hours after birth. Cerebral palsy, brachial plexus injuries, and oxygen-deprivation brain injuries are the most serious results.
These cases involve a lifetime of care costs and are handled by lawyers who work with obstetric and pediatric experts. Our Akron birth injury lawyers take on claims involving hospitals and delivery providers across Summit County.
Hospital errors are failures of the system rather than one provider: understaffing, poor handoffs between shifts, ignored call lights, falls, hospital-acquired infections, pressure injuries, and charting mistakes that lead to the wrong treatment. Nursing errors, such as failing to monitor a patient or report a change in condition to a doctor, fall in the same category.
The hospital can be liable for its own policies and for the negligence of its employees. Whether a doctor who practices there is an employee or an independent contractor is one of the first questions we sort out, because it determines who pays.
Failure to treat covers a correct diagnosis followed by the wrong response: discharging a patient too early, not ordering the tests or follow-up the diagnosis calls for, not referring to a specialist, or ignoring a patient’s reported symptoms. Emergency rooms and urgent cares that send patients home with a serious condition are a common source of these claims.
These cases often come down to the chart: what the provider knew, when they knew it, and what the standard of care required them to do next.
A medical malpractice claim in Ohio has four elements, and the plaintiff has to prove all of them:
Ohio adds a gatekeeping requirement. A malpractice lawsuit must be filed with an affidavit of merit, a sworn statement from a qualified medical expert who has reviewed the records and states that the standard of care was breached and that the breach caused the injury. Without it, the case is subject to dismissal, although a court can grant a short extension for good cause. That is why we do not file until an expert in the right specialty has looked at everything, and why the first weeks of a case are spent gathering records rather than drafting a complaint.
You have a legal right to a copy of your own medical records, and a provider cannot refuse to release them because you are considering a claim. Requesting them early matters: records can be amended, and the version that exists before a provider knows a claim is coming is the version we want.
Once we have them, we do not read them alone. We send the complete chart, imaging, lab results, medication records, and nursing notes to independent medical experts in the relevant specialty. They tell us whether the care fell below the standard, where in the timeline it happened, and what the outcome should have been. That review is what turns a bad experience into a case that can be filed.
Summit County is served by large hospital systems, community hospitals, urgent care and emergency locations, outpatient surgical centers, and private practices. KNR handles claims involving all of them. Where the care happened does not change the standard the provider had to meet; it changes who the defendants are, what insurance is available, and how the records are kept.
Hospital cases involve corporate policies, staffing, and the employment status of the doctors involved. Urgent care and emergency room cases often turn on triage and discharge decisions made under time pressure. Surgical center and private practice cases usually focus on one provider’s judgment. Our Akron medical malpractice lawyers have worked all of these settings, and we know where the records live in each one.
Fight for Everything You’re Owed
If you were harmed due to another person’s recklessness or negligence, you have the option of filing a personal injury claim. With this type of legal action, you are required to prove that another person’s actions led to your injuries. You must establish that some form of medical malpractice took place. It must also be proven that your injuries directly resulted from the malpractice.
In these cases, the burden of proof can be high, meaning that it can be difficult to convince the judge or jury that you were the victim of medical malpractice. For this reason, seeking the help of an experienced lawyer is essential. A legal professional can make your case for you, devising a legal strategy that will give your case the best possible chance of success.
Ohio divides medical malpractice compensation into two categories. Economic damages are the losses with a dollar figure: the cost of the additional treatment you needed, future medical care, lost wages, and reduced earning capacity. Non-economic damages cover what has no receipt: pain and suffering, mental anguish, disfigurement, physical limitations, and loss of consortium, meaning the effect on your relationships. When malpractice causes a death, the family’s claim is brought by our Akron wrongful death attorneys. In most Ohio medical malpractice cases the law limits the non-economic damages a jury can award, with higher limits for the most catastrophic and permanent injuries; economic damages are not capped. Part of building the case is documenting every economic loss, because that category has no ceiling.
In medical malpractice cases, funds may be sought for the following losses:
If you have been victimized by careless and reckless medical care, you must act quickly if you wish to seek funds for your injuries. In Ohio, there are strict requirements associated with filing a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Under state law, a medical claim generally must be filed within one year of the date you discovered, or should have discovered, the injury, and no more than four years after the malpractice itself. There are exceptions for children and for a few specific situations, such as a foreign object left in the body. Because the deadline is short and the affidavit of merit has to be ready before filing, you should seek legal help as soon as you suspect something went wrong.
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What Makes KNR Special?
Since our inception in 2005, Kisling, Nestico & Redick has been dedicated to helping personal injury victims fight for the compensation they deserve after an accident affects their way of life. We have helped more than 10,000 people, and we’re ready to keep fighting for Ohioans and anyone who deserves compensation for their personal injury claims.
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Contact KNRWhat Makes KNR Special?
Being wronged by medical professionals does not have to be the end of your story. You can fight back by gaining the funds you need to move forward with your life. With over 750 years of combined legal experience, our Akron personal injury lawyers have the knowledge and resources to get you maximum compensation for your claim. Whether you have been injured in a poorly performed surgery or hurt by dangerous medication, you deserve to be compensated for your losses.
Medical malpractice occurs when a doctor, nurse, or healthcare facility in Akron fails to provide a reasonable standard of care, and a patient is harmed as a result. This could include surgical errors at a hospital, a misdiagnosis at an urgent care, medication mistakes, or improper follow-up care. If you suspect malpractice, speaking with an attorney can clarify your options.
To prove malpractice in Akron, you must show that a healthcare provider owed you a duty of care, breached that duty, and directly caused your injury. Evidence may include medical records, expert testimony, and proof of damages like additional treatment or lost income. KNR’s team can help collect and present the necessary evidence.
In Ohio, the statute of limitations for medical malpractice is generally one year from the date you discovered (or should have discovered) the injury. However, no case can be filed more than four years after the alleged malpractice occurred. Because deadlines are strict, contacting a lawyer promptly is essential for preserving your rights in Summit County courts.
Yes. If a hospital is responsible for negligent staff, failed protocols, or unsafe conditions that caused your injury, you may be able to file a claim against the hospital itself. An attorney will review whether the staff involved were direct employees or independent contractors to determine liability.
Victims of medical malpractice in Akron may be entitled to compensation for medical expenses, lost wages, ongoing care, pain and suffering, and more. In cases of severe permanent injury or wrongful death, damages can be substantial. KNR works to ensure you pursue the full amount you are legally owed under Ohio law.
Yes, if the misdiagnosis fell below the standard of care and it harmed you. Not every wrong diagnosis is malpractice; the question is whether a reasonably careful doctor with the same information would have reached the right diagnosis or ordered the tests that would have. You also have to show the delay changed your outcome, for example by allowing a cancer to progress or a stroke to go untreated. A medical expert reviews your records to answer both questions before a claim is filed.
An affidavit of merit is a sworn statement from a qualified medical expert, filed with a medical malpractice lawsuit in Ohio, confirming that the expert has reviewed your records, that the provider breached the standard of care, and that the breach caused your injury. A case filed without one is subject to dismissal, although courts can grant a short extension for good cause. It exists to screen out claims with no medical support, and it is why your lawyer needs your records and an expert review before the case can be filed.
Call (330) 869-9007 or 1-800-HURT-NOW for a free, confidential consultation. There is no fee unless we win.
