Surgical Negligence
Unfortunately, surgeons and hospitals make preventable negligent or careless mistakes during surgery. Common surgical errors include leaving operating tools, or leaving operating sponges inside a patient; surgery on the wrong part of the body or wrong organ; surgery for an organ that should not have been operated on because of a faulty reading of X-Rays, CAT Scans, or MRI.s; negligent operating techniques.
Doctors, surgeons, gynecologists, orthopedic surgeons and laparoscopic surgeons who are at fault for this mistake should be held accountable for any carelessness. Such carelessness is most often, in our experience, due to the following contributing factors to surgical errors: surgeon fatigue, inattentiveness; mis-communication among surgical staff; poor handwriting in patients’ charts; poor pre-operative planning; failure to take proper patient medical history; and a failure to note all drug allergies. As a result of any surgical error, the pain and suffering of the patient to fix those errors, sometimes by way of additional surgeries, obviously increases. Patients may have to pay for multiple surgeries; there may be nerve or organ damage, or infection and scarring.
The emotional toll of being a victim of a surgical mistake is oftentimes profound.
Surgical mistakes are some of the most common types of medical malpractice lawsuits in the United States. Hospitals and other health care providers do their best to move patients through surgery and recovery as quickly as possible. Although this can help to treat more patients in need, this can also lead to surgical mistakes, some minor, or some far more devastating.
If the surgical injury or death could have been avoided, or was the result of negligence or inattention, the injured party has the legal right to sue for monetary damages, and the Diefenbach Law firm is here to help.
Most Common Surgical Mistakes:
• Wrong Surgery Site. This occurs when surgery is performed on the wrong body part or organ.
• Unneeded Surgery. This occurs when a patient is subjected to an unneeded surgery.
• Use of Unsanitary Surgical Instruments. The use of unsanitary surgical instruments during surgery can lead to infection and cross-contamination of disease. If the patient is already suffering from a weakened immune system, the consequences could be fatal. Also serious complications can arise if a surgical instrument has been left in the body.
• Damage to Organs and Tissue. During a surgery, an organ can be accidentally nicked or punctured with a scalpel, scissors, etc. Organ tissue is delicate and such an occurrence can lead to serious and lasting health issues.
• Nerve Damage.
Surgical mistakes are not always as apparent as performing surgery on the wrong organ or area or leaving a surgical instrument inside a patient. Sometimes, surgical mistakes can be that the doctor failed to exercise reasonable care at anytime during the surgery. Doctors often work long hours, becoming exhausted and still continue to perform surgeries or may even perform a surgery while being sick themselves. The question in a surgical error lawsuit is whether a patient’s surgical injury was caused by the doctor’s negligence, mistake, or carelessness.
The critical elements of a medical malpractice lawsuit, when it is about surgical mistakes, is what a reasonably skilled doctor should have done under similar circumstances and then showing how the surgeon in a lawsuit failed to measure up to that standard performing the operation. The surgeon’s negligence must be shown to have actually caused the harm to the patient.
Consequences of a Surgical Error
A surgical mistake can amount to huge medical expenses and may necessitate corrective follow-up procedures which can require a patient to not only incur more bills, but also to take time off work and lose wages. Sometimes a patient’s health may not be the same as it was before the error and may never be.
You deserve compensation for your pain and suffering, and you deserve to recover the costs imposed on you for the errors caused by hospital and doctor’s negligence. It is important to choose a top law firm to ensure the most effective representation for your interests. Your initial consultation is free with Diefenbach Law Firm, and requires no obligation on your part
Improper gynecologic surgeries can be the result of misread laboratory tests or incorrectly performed office procedures. Gynecologists often perform laparoscopies for some procedures which may result in a surgical cut of an artery during that laparoscopy which of course can result in severe bleeding and death. In one case our office handled, we represented a patient whose gynecologist performed a laparoscopy and cut not one but three different areas of her large bowel by mistake. She also suffered over 3 liters of loss of blood during the laparoscopy.
Another area of surgical error is in the field of surgical opthamalogy. LASIK surgery is common among eyeglass wearers. Some LASIK surgery results in clear medical malpractice as well.
At the Diefenbach Law Firm, our New York medical malpractice lawyers will investigate your medical records and use expert surgeons and doctors as needed to uncover any error or mistake your doctor may have committed during surgery, or laparoscopy, or eye surgery. Should we accept your case, we will leave no stone unturned as we unravel what may have happened in the operating room.
