Harmed by a Medical Error in Little Rock?

If you believe a doctor, surgeon, nurse, or hospital in Little Rock made a mistake that harmed you, the single most important thing you can do right now is request complete copies of your medical records. Every chart note, lab result, imaging report, operative note, discharge summary, and nursing record related to the treatment in question.

Under federal and Arkansas law, you have the right to obtain copies of your own medical records. The provider can charge a reasonable copying fee, but they can’t refuse. Request records from every facility involved — if you were treated at UAMS Medical Center, CHI St. Vincent Infirmary, Baptist Health Medical Center, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, or any of Little Rock’s clinics, get records from each one. If you were transferred between facilities, get the transfer notes too.

Do this now, before anything gets altered, lost, or buried. Medical records are the foundation of every malpractice claim. Without them, nothing else moves forward.

As soon as you’re able, create a detailed written timeline. Start with what brought you to the doctor or hospital. What symptoms you reported. What you were told about your diagnosis and treatment plan. The name of every provider who treated you — attending physician, surgeon, residents, nurses, anesthesiologist. What procedure was performed and when. The exact moment you noticed something was wrong. Who you told about it and what they said.

Dates and times matter. If family members were present during appointments or hospital stays, ask them to write their own account of what they saw and heard. Witnesses to bedside conversations, discharge instructions, or visible changes in your condition can fill in gaps you might miss.

This timeline isn’t legal evidence on its own, but it’s the roadmap any attorney will use to identify where care may have gone wrong. The details you capture in the first few days are sharper than anything you’ll recall six months from now.

Not every bad outcome is malpractice. Medicine is complicated, and sometimes things go wrong even when the care was appropriate. To have a viable medical malpractice claim in Arkansas, you generally need to show four things under Ark. Code § 16-114-206: the provider owed you a duty of care, they failed to act in accordance with the accepted standard of care, that failure proximately caused your injury, and you suffered actual damages as a result.

Arkansas uses a locality-based standard of care. The question is whether the provider acted as other members of the same profession in the same or similar community would have acted. Similarity of communities is measured by the medical facilities, practices, and advantages available — not population size. This means the standard for a specialist at UAMS (an academic medical center) may differ from a rural clinic.

Expert testimony is required to establish the standard of care, the breach, and causation — unless the negligence is so obvious that an average person could recognize it without expert help. The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down a prior requirement that the expert be of the same specialty as the defendant, but the expert must still be qualified in the relevant area of medicine.

This is where Arkansas law is unusually harsh for patients. Under Ark. Code § 16-114-203, you must file your medical malpractice lawsuit within two years from the date of the wrongful act. The statute specifically states that the accrual date is the date of the wrongful act “and no other time.”

That means Arkansas does not have a general discovery rule for malpractice. In most states, the clock starts when you discover (or should have discovered) the injury. In Arkansas, it starts when the act happens — even if you had no way of knowing something went wrong. If a surgeon nicks an organ during a procedure and you don’t find out for three years, you may already be time-barred.

There is one narrow exception: if a foreign object (like a surgical sponge or instrument) was left inside your body and couldn’t reasonably have been discovered within the two-year window, you have one year from the date you discover it or reasonably should have discovered it.

For minors under age 9, the statute doesn’t begin running until the child turns 9, but the claim must be filed before the child’s 11th birthday. These deadlines are absolute. Miss them, and your case is gone — no matter how clear the malpractice was.

Arkansas has had a turbulent history with medical malpractice procedural requirements. The legislature has tried multiple times to add hurdles for patients — and the Arkansas Supreme Court has struck many of them down as unconstitutional.

A former requirement for a pre-suit expert affidavit within 30 days of filing was invalidated by the Arkansas Supreme Court as infringing on the judiciary’s authority over procedural rules. A 60-day pre-suit notice requirement was struck down on the same grounds. A requirement that expert witnesses be from the same specialty as the defendant was also ruled unconstitutional.

What this means for you: Arkansas currently has no mandatory mediation, no pre-suit screening panels, and no pre-suit notice or affidavit requirements. You can file a malpractice lawsuit directly in Pulaski County Circuit Court (401 W. Markham St., Little Rock) without jumping through procedural hoops that some other states impose. However, you will still need qualified expert testimony to support your claim at trial.

This is where Arkansas law works in patients’ favor. Article 5, Section 32 of the Arkansas Constitution states that no law shall be enacted limiting the amount to be recovered for injuries resulting in death or for injuries to persons or property. That means no caps on economic damages and no caps on noneconomic damages (pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of quality of life).

The legislature has tried repeatedly to change this. A 2016 ballot measure (Issue 4) attempted to amend the Constitution to allow caps on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases — the Arkansas Supreme Court struck it from the ballot. A 2018 proposed amendment to cap non-economic damages at $500,000 was also struck down. Arkansas remains one of approximately five states with a constitutional prohibition on damage caps.

However, a new law that will affect malpractice recoveries is Act 28 of 2025 (AR House Bill 1204), signed into law in February 2025. This limits recovery of medical expense damages to the amounts actually paid by or on behalf of the patient — not the higher “chargemaster” billed amounts. In practice, this can reduce the medical damages a jury sees, which may in turn affect total verdicts.

After a serious adverse outcome, the hospital may reach out through its risk management department. They may ask you to sign forms, give statements, or participate in an internal review. They’ll likely be polite and may express sympathy. What they’re also doing is building their defense.

You are not obligated to give statements to the hospital’s risk management team beyond what’s needed for your ongoing care. Anything you say could be used later in litigation. Be careful about signing anything beyond standard consent forms for treatment.

If the hospital or provider says “we’re sorry this happened,” take note of the exact words. In many states, apologies are inadmissible as evidence. Arkansas does not have a broad apology law that shields all expressions of sympathy, so factual admissions embedded in an apology may be usable in court.

Medical malpractice cases are the most complex, expensive, and difficult personal injury claims to win. They require expert medical testimony, extensive record review, and a deep understanding of both medicine and Arkansas’s procedural landscape. Nationally, malpractice plaintiffs win at trial only about 20–30% of the time.

The strict two-year deadline makes early consultation critical. Because the clock starts on the date of the act — not when you discover the harm — any delay in seeking legal help could cost you your entire claim. An experienced malpractice attorney can review your records, consult with medical experts, and tell you whether you have a viable claim before you spend any money.

Most malpractice attorneys in Arkansas work on a contingency fee basis — no upfront cost, and they only get paid if you recover. The average Arkansas malpractice payout reached $509,000 in 2023, the highest in the state’s recorded history. Given the complexity and the strict deadline, professional legal help isn’t a luxury — it’s close to a necessity.