Having surgery, particularly under a general anesthetic, is nerve-wracking at the best of times. Although many routine procedures and technological advancements have led to better outcomes, every procedure comes with some risk.
Hopefully, when you wake up in recovery, you’ll hear the doctor announce that it was an uneventful surgery and a complete success. But if something unexpected occurs, if you are in significant pain or the procedure did not go as expected, you may ask yourself if this unfortunate outcome was the result of a medical error.
This blog outlines the four main types of surgical errors, explains how to determine if there may have been negligence, and what you can do if you or a loved one was injured by suspected medical malpractice.
Four main types of surgical errors
Medical malpractice cases involving surgeries tend to fall into four main categories. In the first two categories, it is often apparent that there was negligence. It will not be clear if negligence played a role in the outcome in the other two categories, and a deeper investigation will be required.- Wrongful surgery – If surgery was performed on the wrong patient, if the correct surgery was performed on the wrong body part, or if surgery was unnecessary based on a patient’s profile, some form of negligence is likely involved. Wrongful surgeries, which substantially impact a body (for example, amputating the wrong limb), can profoundly affect a person’s enjoyment of life, ability to work, and psychological well-being. In these medical malpractice cases, the question is usually not if there will be an award or monetary compensation to a patient, but rather how much they or their loved ones will receive.
- Objects left inside the body – There have been cases where medical tools, materials or other objects are inadvertently left inside the patient’s body. There are protocols and safety checks to prevent this from occurring to ensure foreign objects are accounted for. Infection, scarring, nerve damage and/or remedial surgeries are all possible outcomes in these cases. Once again, proving negligence and damages is generally straightforward with this type of case.
- Substandard post-surgical care – Your medical provider’s responsibility to you, as a patient, doesn’t end when you are stitched up or sent home. Ensuring proper follow-up care is an important piece of recovery. Patients need to be monitored and educated about the signs of infection or other post-surgical issues relevant to the particular surgery they underwent. In these cases, proving negligence is more difficult as complications can arise despite appropriate follow-up care. However, if you experience an unexpectedly poor recovery or sustained injury due to poor communication and/or care, there may be medical malpractice. It is reasonable to investigate and ask questions in this situation.
- Injury during surgery – If you sustain an injury during surgery, odds are you were not in a state of awareness to recall what happened, what was said, and how the surgeon and medical team responded. Sometimes the injury is part of an inherent risk of the surgery despite the surgeon exercising appropriate skill and caution. Other times, poor judgment, inexperience, lack of skill, inattention, or out-of-date medical knowledge, among other things, may have caused the injury. Determining if negligence caused a surgical injury can be challenging to answer and will require expert knowledge.