Anesthesia is necessary in countless surgical procedures including dental procedures, local cosmetic surgeries, general surgeries performed in office and highly specialized, hospital-based, surgical procedures in order to effectively alleviate patient pain and discomfort during the procedure. Administrating the correct anesthesia dosage amount to a surgical patient is extremely important in avoiding an adverse outcome such as an unexpected, injurious overdose. Doctors are responsible to take a full patient medical history along with making thorough pre-procedure preparations to ensure that neither too little nor too much anesthesia is given to their patient. Improper drug labeling or careless administration, such as giving the same dosage twice, may also result in the wrong dose being given causing catastrophic results. The correct timing for supplying the anesthesia is also significantly important. Delayed anesthesia administration can result in severe pain and terrifying patient waking during the procedure. All mechanical devices used to timely and safely deliver correct anesthesia dosages during a procedure must be checked and found to be working properly and defect free.
Common Anesthesia Delivery Errors
Unfortunately there are instances where a doctor, or a member of his surgical room team, makes a diagnostic and/or a procedural error in sedating a patient and adverse events with profound injuries are the result.
Common anesthesia errors include:
- Overdose, too much anesthesia
- Inadequate dose, waking during the procedure with severe emotional and physical pain
- Failure to properly monitor a patient while under sedation
- Improper delays in anesthesia delivery causing unnecessary waking and pain during procedure
- Failing to provide the patient with proper pre-operative instructions, such as not eating or drinking resulting in adverse events such as vomiting while sedated posing a choking and airway obstruction hazard
- Unexpected adverse drug interactions
- Improper administration of anesthesia to a patient allergic to that chemical causing allergic reaction while sedated
- Use of defective medical devices for anesthesia delivery during sedation causing a failure of the sedation resulting in patient pain and waking
- Failure to properly administer oxygen during procedure
- Inadequate pharmaceutical labeling resulting in a clinical misuse
Anesthesia Malpractice Lawsuits
When a surgical patient has suffered an injury, emotional or physical, due to an adverse surgical-anesthesia related event the result is inevitably a medical malpractice lawsuit against the offending anesthesiologist and all other event connected surgeons, hospitals, nurses, medical equipment manufacturer and pharmaceutical company. Often people who have awakened during a procedure have subsequently suffered severe psychological injury and as a result are afraid of doctors and medical settings such as hospitals and physician offices and suffer flashbacks, sleep disorders and anxiety disorders. Physical injury arising from an adverse anesthesia event can range from a wrongful death to a permanent disability including such things as brain injury, stroke, heart attack, birth defects, paralysis and asphyxia.
Getting Legal Help
If you or a member of your family has suffered injury resulting from an adverse surgical event involving an error in the delivery or choice of anesthesia, it is important to contact a medical malpractice attorney to fully preserve and protect your rights and interests. There can be significant financial burdens arising from an anesthesia related injury including years of lost wages due to an injury causing a permanent disability. A medical malpractice attorney can help to recoup some of the financial loss suffered due to the injury as well as the expense of obtaining future medical care for the injury as well as present and future lost wages.
