Plaintiff lawsuits involving wrong site surgery claims are generally successful. Wrong site surgery is often an instance of “professional negligence per se” or an act of medical malpractice that speaks for itself describing an act of negligence or error failing below the acceptable standard of care required by a surgeon or physician without additional evidence or wrongdoing.
Plaintiffs suffering an injury as a result of a wrong site surgery are often able to collect the costs of the medical care involving the injurious mistake as well as other related medical and personal damages, this is of course assuming that the claimant has been able to survive the harmful procedure. Many people who have suffered a wrongful death as a result of a medical negligence involving a wrong site procedure are no longer around to voice their objection to this unthinkable kind of professional negligence. Neurosugical procedures such as those involving brain surgery to remove an aneurism have been negligently performed on the wrong side of the patient’s brain and resulted in a preventable, painful patient death.
And the Winner Is….
Wrong site surgery was determined by medical practitioner peer group analysis and insurance company data collection to happen most commonly during orthopedic procedures, with urologic procedures being second runner up, and surprisingly, neurosurgical procedures, or brain surgeries, won third place in line for the award of most common instances of medical negligence by way of wrong site surgical procedures. One would think that a surgeon intelligent enough to become a brain surgeon would be clever enough to at least skim read through a patient’s medical records and data before using a scalpel to cut into their brain.
Pre-surgical Risks Increase Wrong Site Surgery Risk
It has been determined that several pre-surgical factors contribute to an increased risk of wrong-site surgery. The risks are highlighted by a general, overall sense of professional carelessness and the stacking up operation theatres with patients in order perform as many revenue generating procedures as possible placing patients on risky assembly line of surgical procedures and finally just a common physician and surgeon attitude seeking to blame anyone but themselves for sloppy, dangerous medical protocols placing the patient, the hospital and operating room team at risk.
These risks have been determined by medical peer groups to include the following:
- Multiple surgeons involved in the case because multiple surgical procedures are involved
- Care of the patient is transferred to another surgeon
- Unusual time pressures related to delayed start times or pressure to speed up the procedure
- Unusual patient characteristics such as physical deformity, obesity or other condition that might alter equipment set up or patient positioning
- Inadequate communication and preoperative assessment of the patient including failure to verify the identity of the patient or the operative site.
Many patients find that flimsy physician and surgeon rationalizations blaming these unthinkable episodes of medical negligence or malpractice on the patient patently unconvincing. Many find the fact that this kind of inexplicable surgical mistake ever, even happened to be extremely frightening. Many want to know if a doctor can make a mistake of that magnitude in just determining where to cut during a procedure, how then, can that same surgeon possibly possess the requisite ability to properly engage in the surgical procedure itself without causing some other kind of injury. People have lost trust in physicians seeking money above patient safely. The medical community as always takes no steps to do anything other than to protect the interests of offending surgeon and hospital. Injured patients are left to turn to medical malpractice attorneys and the courts to access some kind of compensation for their pain and injuries.
Getting Legal Help
If you or a member of your family has suffered injury resulting from a wrong site surgical procedure it is important to contact a medical malpractice attorney to timely preserve and protect legal rights and interests. The financial burden of medical bills arising from the negligent medical procedure and all related procedures may be recoverable as well damages such as loss of consortium and the costs of on-going medical care and additional surgical procedures arising from a wrongful site surgical injury.
