Injuries Caused by Medical Error: Is it Medical Malpractice?

Medical error is often caused by an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis and/or treatment of a disease, injury, behavior, infection or other ailment.  It is estimated that medical error is the cause of approximately 44,000 to 98,000 unnecessary deaths and 1,000,000 excess injuries each year.  Medical error can arise due to mistakes involving inexperienced physicians, new procedures, extremes in patient age, complex or emergency care, poor communication (such as patient speaks a foreign language), improper documentation, illegible handwriting, inadequate nurse-to-patient ratios, and similarly named medications.

Common Examples of Medical Error

Below are examples of medical error:

• Improper administration of anesthesia, such as  failure to monitor patient during surgery, improper intubation or extubation, can have disastrous effects, including permanent brain damage and death
• Angiography is an evaluator of coronary artery disease but improperly performed may result in the very heart attack it was performed to prevent
• Burn Treatment which included improper cleaning and dressing of the wound and pain management resulting in drug addiction 
• Diabetes uncontrolled due to physician failure to diagnose and treat can result in blindness, amputation, renal failure, neuropathy, heart disease and stroke.
• Defective diet drugs, dangerous exercise regimes and surgical lap band procedures can result in premature death and other severe injury such as heart damage
• Drug addiction caused by carelessly overprescribed or illegally prescribed medications usually for pain
• An adverse, allergic or other harmful reaction caused by a drug or a combination of drugs may result in death
• Experimental therapy without full patient informed consent falls below the accepted standard of care.
• Incorrect treatment of bone fractures can result in lifetime disability in use of the limb
• Heart surgery resulting in failed repairs can result in a wrongful death
• Hemorrhages such as uncontrolled brain hemorrhage may cause irreversible brain damage and death
• Hysterectomies are often completely unnecessary and performed for physician profit, others resulting in permanent bladder injury and punctured colons.
• Renal failure due to misdiagnosis and non-treatment of kidney stones, removal of the wrong kidney during transplant surgery can result in death
• Priapism is an erection, usually painful, that lasts for more than four hours and is not necessarily the result of sexual arousal.  It may have been caused by prescription drug use, addiction or other malpractice and it needs to be treated immediately to avoid permanent erectile dysfunction and other injury.  It will not usually resolve by itself.
• Spinal surgery at the wrong vertebral level, injury to spinal nerves, injury to the spinal cord, damage to major blood vessels may cause permanent paralysis or death.
• Post surgical infections common surgical complications, are often severe and a direct result of hospital negligence or medical malpractice during the procedure.  

Always Talk to a Medical Malpractice Lawyer

If you or a family member has suffered a serious, permanent injury related some kind of medical error, you may want to talk with a lawyer to determine if you have a valid medical malpractice case.  The injured patient may be entitled to compensation for medical bills, lost wages and other related expenses.