When you need surgery, you are trusting a medical professional to perform an extremely delicate operation on your body. Perhaps the surgeon even claims to have a history of hundreds of similar operations, so you expect nothing to go wrong.
Unfortunately, honest mistakes can happen during a surgical operation. However, a surgical mistake that results from negligent behavior could be an example of medical malpractice deserving legal action.
Possible surgical mistakes
Medical professionals term certain possible errors as never events. These are life-threatening mistakes that should never happen, and they are often symptoms of malpractice when they do occur. Surgical mistakes that could constitute medical malpractice include:
- Operating on the wrong part of the patient’s body
- Performing the incorrect operation
- Operating on the wrong patient altogether
- Failing to diagnose a medical condition during surgery
- Damaging healthy organs during surgery
- Leaving medical instruments in the patient’s body after the operation
How to respond to a surgical error
In the event that you sustain injury due to a surgical error, your first priority is to seek treatment and secure your health. If you choose to pursue a medical malpractice case, it will be necessary to provide evidence that you had a doctor-patient relationship with the surgeon and that they exhibited negligence. An unbiased medical expert will then determine if the alleged negligence is the reason for your injury.
Medical malpractice is a terrifying possibility that patients do not want to take into consideration. Keeping meticulous records during any interaction with a medical professional can help protect you financially in the event that a surgical error does take place.
