If a screw comes out of titanium mesh in the skull and is stuck in the neck muscle is that considered mal-practice in Florida?

Answer 1

In order to establish a malpractice case, you'll need a Doctor Who practices in the same area to testify that the actions of the prior doctor were negligent.

So, you'll want to visit other doctors and ask their opinion.

Remember, malpractice is not simply a bad (or poor) outcome from a medical procedure. Malpractice means the doctor (or medical facility) violated the acceptable practices standards set for them by the state in question, and that the violation had an ill effect on the patient.

Here are two examples:

(1) You went into the hospital with a broken arm. The doctors decided that it was severely broken, and required surgery to fix. After the surgery was over, you developed sepsis while in recovery, and died. There is no malpractice here if the doctors followed proper protocol in diagnosing your severely broken arm, and if no consequential mistakes were made during surgery (i.e. no mistake was made during surgery which directly let to you acquiring sepsis).

(2) Same as (1), except someone left a surgical sponge in your arm during surgery. As it could possibly have been the cause of your sepsis, you would have a legal malpractice suit, in which there would be testimony which decided the degree of fault that leaving such a sponge in you had caused your sepsis.

Back to the original question: it's not automatically malpractice. You would have to find supporting evidence from other medical professionals that someone made serious mistakes (including recommending the wrong procedure) in your care that resulted in the screw coming loose. You would also have to show some sort of negative outcome that the loose screw is causing in order to receive monetary damages - if you can show it shouldn't have come loose with proper medical care, but can't show that it's causing you any measurable harm, then the best that you could receive would be free corrective medical procedures (possibly remove the screw, and put a new one back in the mesh).