Surgical Errors and Medical Malpractice

Often necessary for some of the most life-threatening medical conditions, surgery is an area of medical care requiring the skill of an attentive, knowledgeable surgeon.

2012-02-29

PHILADELPHIA, PA, February 29, 2012 (Press-News.org) Often necessary for some of the most life-threatening medical conditions, surgery is an area of medical care requiring the skill of an attentive, knowledgeable surgeon. When an error occurs at any point in your surgical care, the results can be devastating. You may face a medical condition requiring more invasive treatment than before your surgery, or you may be permanently debilitated or disfigured as a result of the error.

Types of Surgical Error
There are many ways that medical error can arise in surgery. Some of the most common surgical errors include:
- Wrong site surgery
- Wrong patient surgery
- Patient disfigurement
- Instruments left in patient
- Infection

These are just a few of the ways error can arise in surgery. Surgical errors can range from simply misplacing an incision to puncturing an internal organ.

Consequences of a surgical error can be life-altering. You may have to undergo additional operations to correct the error, or your medical condition may be aggravated by the error. You may have to be absent from work for an extended period of time, affecting your wages and the livelihood of your family. Scarring or improper incisions may disfigure your physical appearance. In some cases, surgical errors can be fatal, especially if the mistake requires the patient to be on the surgical table and anesthetized for an extended period of time.

Surgical Errors and Negligence

If you have been injured as a result of a surgical error, you should consult an attorney. If your surgeon - or anyone involved with your surgery - was negligent, you may be entitled to compensation for your injury-related expenses.

In order to file a medical malpractice claim, negligence must have caused the surgical error, which must have caused your injury. If the surgeon was not negligent, then malpractice did not occur. One way of determining negligence is to consider if another doctor would have acted differently than your doctor in a similar situation. If your doctor failed to exercise the care that any other reasonable doctor would exercise, he or she may have acted negligently. Negligence is partly determined by whether your surgeon acted in a way that meets standards of care accepted by the medical community.

An experienced medical malpractice attorney can investigate the details of your case and determine the likelihood that negligence caused your injury.

To learn more about surgical errors, please visit the website of the experienced medical malpractice lawyers in Pennsylvania at Atlee, Hall & Brookhart, LLP, serving clients in Philadelphia and Lancaster at www.atleehall.com.

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