Facts to Know About Surgical Errors

Facts to Know About Surgical Errors

All surgeries carry risks, regardless of how ‘minor’ the procedure may be perceived, as a personal injury lawyer in Rockville MD can attest. No surgery is completely routine, as every patient and the sequence of events that plays out will be different.

Due to prior conditions and health, patients will be at various levels of risk for complications. Some negative impacts may be unavoidable. That is to say the complication may have occurred regardless of the doctor performing the surgery. The patient’s own health condition may have contributed to the negative events.

But if your doctor acted outside the reasonable standard of accepted care, then you may have a malpractice case on your hands.

Defining Surgical Errors

Surgeries involve risks, and for these reasons doctors must explain to patients what could go wrong before entering the operating room. This process of ‘informed consent’ will cover the typical dangers of the procedure as well as any hazards that are specific to the patient given the state of their health.

Surgical errors however are preventable mistakes. These failures, and what caused them, will be unique each time. Though there are surgical errors that are more common than others, here is a list of common errors seen by a personal injury lawyer in Rockville MD:

• Fatigue: many doctors notoriously work long shifts. As such, it puts them at risk of making more mistakes when they’re tired.
• Poor communication and work processes: when surgeons do not communicate properly with their team or if they try to take shortcuts, it could lead to critical mistakes.
• Drugs and alcohol: if a doctor or nurse is under the influence in the operating room it may impair their judgement. It may be unfathomable to believe this happens, but it does.
• Incompetence: sometimes healthcare professionals may simply have not performed your type of procedure that often. This lack of knowledge can leave them ill prepared for complications when they arise.
• Outright neglect: if a surgical team fails to be as careful as they could be, this puts patients at risk. An example could be using equipment they know to be defective.

Any of these situations can create disastrous circumstances for the patient that could carry life-altering effects.

From the perspective of a personal injury lawyer in Rockville MD, some common mistakes include:

• Operating on the wrong body part
• Nerve damage
• Punctured organs
• Infection
• Surgical equipment left inside the patient’s body
• Anesthesia failures
• Operating on the wrong patient

Signs of Surgical Errors

After surgery it’s always important to ask your surgeon what side effects you can expect to see. This will better prepare you to be on the lookout for unusual symptoms that could be caused by an error.

Some symptoms that usually require immediate medical attention are:

• Fever
• Intense, sharp pain at surgical site
• Redness or swelling at surgical site
• Vomiting
• Abdominal pain

Only further medical investigation will show if you are suffering a complication that could have been prevented.

Working with a Trusted Rockville, MD Personal Injury lawyer

The team at The Law Office of Daniel J. Wright has represented many medical malpractice patients in the Rockville, MD area. We have many years of experience in malpractice cases involving surgical errors.Our team can connect you with trusted medical professionals to treat your injuries. And, we will fight to get you the compensation you deserve. Call a top personal injury lawyer from Rockville MD. The Law Office of Daniel J. Wright stands ready to discuss your case today.

Client Review

“Completely professional, Quickly response, Politely, help me with my case. Your next REAL LAW.”
Leandro M