Surgical Mistakes
Surgery is supposed to improve the quality of your life. It is supposed to alleviate the symptoms of your injury or illness. It is supposed to be helpful. Of course, every surgery has its own risks and every patient needs to weigh those risks against the anticipated benefits in order to determine whether the surgery will be beneficial. Additionally, patients need to consider possible complications from surgery that occur not because of the nature of the surgery but rather because of human error.
Complications From Surgery
All types of surgery carry risks. Anesthesia is risky and many medical procedures are so intricate that they require the surgeon to be precise in his or her work. Complications arising from the anesthesia or particular medical procedure can be difficult to prevent. However, other serious complications can arise due to human error or carelessness and these types of complications can be preventable.
Consider, for example, the following types of complications:
- Retained Foreign Part: Surgical teams often count the number of surgical sponges and other instruments and devices both before a surgery starts and before they close up a patient after surgery. The purpose of this exercise is to ensure that all of the tools that were used during surgery are out of the patient’s body. Sometimes, however, surgical teams do not do this and surgical items remain in the patient after the operation. This can lead to patient pain, future surgeries and dangerous infections.
- Unplanned Removal of an Organ: This can occur because a surgical team removes the wrong organ during surgery or because the surgical team damages an internal organ during surgery which then necessitates its removal. Either way, a patient who enters the operating room with a healthy organ leaves without it putting that patient at risk of future complications and possibly compromising his or her health for life. In same cases the organ which did need to be removed remains in the patient’s body which creates a further danger to that patient.
- Wrong Patient: It may seem unthinkable that the wrong patient could be taken into surgery. However, in the busy environment of the hospital mistakes can be made and the wrong patient may be taken into surgery. Typically, the patient is operated on under the assumption that he or she is the intended patient which means that another person’s medical history and chart are available to the surgical staff. Therefore, anesthesia is administered without knowing what other drugs the actual patient is currently taking and a potentially life threatening surgery could be conducted on a patient for whom the surgery is completely unnecessary.
- Wrong Side of Patient: There is no excuse for operating on the wrong side of a patient. Many medical teams use special pens prior to surgery to literally mark which side should be operated on and which side should be left alone. The removal of the wrong kidney or an operation on the wrong knee inevitably harms the patient and subjects the patient to additional surgeries and other, sometimes irrevocable, complications.
- Laceration, Perforation or Tear: Mistakes happen during surgery. Some are known risks that the patient consents to prior to surgery and some are due to doctor’s negligence. If a doctor negligently lacerates, perforates or tears an internal organ then the patient may suffer lasting complications.
- Wrong Surgery: Whether a doctor operates on the wrong patient, the wrong side of the patient or incorrectly removes a healthy organ, the patient suffers the effects of undergoing the wrong surgery and can suffer from lasting complications.
What To Do If You are A Victim of a Preventable Complication
If you are a victim of one of the common complications described above or another type of surgical complication then it is important for you to promptly see a doctor whom you trust. You need to find out how the surgical complications might affect you and what needs to be done to protect yourself medically.
Then you need to speak to a qualified medical malpractice attorney who has experience recovering damages to compensate medical malpractice victims for continuing medical expenses and pain and suffering that they have endured as a result of preventable surgical complications. An experienced medical malpractice attorney may be able to help recover damages if you are the victim of a surgical complication.