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Home » Consumer Information » Medical Malpractice

Psychiatric Malpractice

As a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health professional, it is your duty to treat patients with respect, provide them with proper care, and keep them out of harm's way. A good portion of these people abide by their professional codes of conduct, but there are still some that fail to fulfill their obligations and offer an outlet for patients to keep themselves and their families intact. These are the ones that cause their patients and those dear to them pain and anguish.

Patients seeking mental help are typically unstable and vulnerable, and put their faith in the professional to be that pillar of support that gets them through the day, week, or month. When a mental health professional does not live up to reasonable industry standards and compromises the safety of a patient, the service provider can be held liable for medical malpractice.

Keys to a determining a case of malpractice

In order to build a psychiatric malpractice case, you must be able to differentiate between being treated poorly and suffering due to malpractice, although they often go hand-in-hand. In order to accumulate enough evidence that psychiatric malpractice has occurred, the following four traits need to be clear:

  1. A provider-patient relationship must be present. It is essential to portray this relationship between the claimant and the mental health professional because it verifies the fact that the provider had a duty of reasonable care.
  2. The provider violated the duty of reasonable care. This must be proven through an act of negligence or stepping beyond occupational boundaries on behalf of the provider.
  3. The patient experienced some level of pain and suffering. This usually is evoked by emotional problems, loss of memory, deterioration of their current condition or physical injuries, death, and even suicide.
  4. A causal relationship must be established between the breach of duty and the harm inflicted upon the patient. In other words, it must be proven that the act of negligence had to have caused the damage to the patient. This is often the most difficult aspect of the case to illustrate, so this is where having a successful medical malpractice attorney will be very beneficial to the validity of the lawsuit.

Types of psychiatric malpractice

Some of the most common examples of psychiatric malpractice include:

  • Failure to diagnose a patient's mental illness or realize that the condition is getting worse.
  • Failure to care for a patient appropriately.
  • Careless use of medication.
  • Failure to provide adequate supervision to a patient who is inclined to harm themselves or those around them.
  • Failure to obtain the patient's consent prior to implementing a different therapeutic technique, medication, or procedure.
  • Negligent application of psychotherapy.
  • Psychological exploitation or physical abuse.
  • Lack of regard for patient's feelings or abandonment.
  • Awareness that a patient could harm themselves or others and failing to take a stand to prevent it from happening.
  • Violating the patient's right to privacy.
  • Engaging in a sexual act with a patient.
  • Holding a patient against their will (false imprisonment).
  • Lying to a patient for personal or professional betterment (fraud).

Preventing death in suicidal patients

Mental health professionals assume the responsibility of maintaining a patient's well-being for the sake of themselves and their families. This entails responding promptly in the event that the patient has become a threat to the general public or is contemplating suicide. If the provider does not react appropriately to the patient's current state of mind, they can be blamed if that patient carries out any harmful or violent acts.

If you have a family member who committed suicide while under the guidance of a mental health professional, and you suspect that this person's behavior could've been prevented, contact a medical malpractice lawyer for more on your right to take legal action.