Medical Malpractice: Be Aware of Surgical Errors

When you need surgery to correct a medical condition, you expect to get high-quality care and to come through your operation unscathed. While most people make it through surgery with flying colors, others fall victim to medical malpractice. After suffering medical malpractice, it’s likely that your health will be worse than it was before your surgery, and you may face months or years of recovery time that should have — and could have — been avoided.

If you suspect that you’ve been the victim of medical malpractice, it’s important to learn more about this situation and what you can do. Here are a few of the most important things that you need to know about medical malpractice, including when you should call a personal injury lawyer.

Medical Standard of Care

One of the most important things that you need to realize when it comes to medical malpractice is that not every mistake that is made in a medical setting can be considered malpractice. Even minor surgery can be a risky proposition, and it’s possible for errors to occur during surgery that are beyond the surgeon’s control. This is why you are usually required to sign an indemnity waiver prior to most surgeries.

For a medical mistake to constitute malpractice, it must fall below what’s known as the medical standard of care. The medical standard of care is defined as the level of care that you would receive from a normal health care professional who had received adequate training and would have acted in the same manner in the same circumstance. If your medical mistake did not fall below this standard, you have not been the victim of malpractice.

Learn About Surgical Errors

When a person undergoes surgery, they do so under what is known as informed consent. This means they have been informed of the risks of surgery and have agreed to the procedure anyway. A surgical error differs from the normal risks associated with surgery because a surgical error is a mistake that was preventable. Most surgical errors cause major harm to the patient and are considered medical malpractice.

Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of reasons that a person could experience surgical errors. For instance, your surgeon could be incompetent or may have failed to properly prepare for your surgery. It’s also possible to suffer a surgical error due to a surgeon that takes shortcuts, a lack of communication between the surgical team, and neglect.

A few of the most common types of surgical errors include anesthesia that has been incorrectly applied, an operation that is performed on the wrong patient or on the wrong body part, failing to remove a piece of surgical equipment, and causing nerve damage.

Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer

Medical malpractice often results in very serious consequences that make it difficult to live your life, which is why many people consider a personal injury lawsuit against the negligent physician. If you’re interested in filing a medical malpractice personal injury suit, you need to hire a personal injury lawyer Parrish DeVaughn, Injury Lawyers.

The Parrish DeVaughn legal team is ready, willing, and able to research the facts of your medical malpractice and help you plan a lawsuit. Contact us today for more information.