Surgical Errors and Your Rights After a Surgery Gone Wrong
There are few times in life when you are completely vulnerable. Undergoing surgery is one of those times. While under anesthesia, you are completely dependent on the medical staff who have vowed to take care of you, monitor your vitals, and carry out surgery in the safest way possible. Southern California has some of the finest medical centers in the country, but mistakes can happen even here. When they do, it’s time to talk to the team at DeWitt Algorri & Algorri. Their errors may be considered medical malpractice, and you could be entitled to compensation. Our team fights aggressively on behalf of clients who have been harmed as a result of medical providers’ negligence or ignorance. Call us at 855-WINNING (946-6464) to set up a consultation now.
Surgical errors are what most people think of when they think about medical mistakes. This is likely because surgical errors are among the most dramatic types of medical errors—everyone’s heard a horror story of someone getting the wrong limb amputated. However, the most common types of cases are actually missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis. These errors can cause a devastating delay in treatment that can be fatal for patients.
Learn more about surgical errors and your options when you suspect medical malpractice.
Common Types of Surgical Errors
Unfortunately, there are many ways that medical providers can make mistakes, fail to follow evidence-based care standards or act unreasonably during surgery. Some commonly reported surgical errors include:
- Wrong-site surgery: The first three items on this list are “never events,” per the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. This means that they should never happen and that there is no excuse for these errors to occur. They indicate a massive issue with a facility’s safety protocols. Wrong-site surgery refers to surgery done on the wrong part of the body or the wrong side. For example, amputating the wrong leg, operating on the wrong lung, or removing tissue from the wrong side of a single body part.
- Wrong-procedure surgery: This error involves operating on the appropriate part of the body but doing the wrong procedure. As a result, the patient undergoes the risk of anesthesia and must go through the recovery process for a surgery that did nothing to help them and may have actually caused harm.
- Wrong-patient surgery: Wrong-patient errors are among the most egregious medical malpractice cases. They are most likely in cases where there are multiple patients with the same or similar last names and overbooked medical staff.
- Anesthesia errors: Giving too little anesthesia can lead to a patient waking up mid-surgery; too much anesthesia can be fatal.
- Retained surgical items: Care providers leaving operating instruments, sponges, and other items inside the body can lead to swift and irreparable damage to a patient’s health.
- Damage to organs or nerves: Careless surgical errors can cause permanent damage to nerves or organs, impacting their function and a patient’s quality of life.
- Preventable infections: When doctors aren’t careful enough about maintaining a sterile environment, post-op infections may occur.
How You Know When Something Has Gone Wrong
In many cases, patients have to go to multiple care providers to figure out that something has indeed gone wrong. If they have unusually high levels of pain, swelling, and bleeding, their initial care team may write them off as standard side effects of surgery. However, these symptoms always warrant a checkup. If the provider who did your surgery doesn’t listen, you can and should seek a second opinion. You may also notice that something’s wrong if you develop signs of an infection, such as a high fever, skin that is puffy and hot to the touch, and drainage. If the wrong procedure was done or the wrong site was operated on, the main sign something went wrong may simply be that your symptoms do not improve at all after surgery.
What to Do After a Surgical Error
First, you must seek a second opinion. While hospitals have procedures in place to help patients report errors and malpractice, they may actually circle the wagons around the negligent medical provider and ignore your claim. With proof of the doctor’s negligence from a second care provider, you can reach out to a medical malpractice attorney in Southern California. They can help you seek compensation and take proper steps to report the care provider to the appropriate agencies.
Discuss Your Options With DeWitt Algorri & Algorri
Don’t wait a moment longer to talk to DeWitt Algorri & Algorri. We know how a medical mistake can change the course of your life, and we want to help you fight for compensation. Call us at 855-WINNING (946-6464) or reach out online to get started now.
Mark Algorri has successfully represented individuals and their families in matters involving serious and catastrophic injuries, insurance claims denials, and wrongful deaths, achieving a success rate of 99 percent for our clients.
