A surgical error occurs when a surgeon makes a mistake during the surgery and fails to perform the procedure successfully. These mistakes are mostly preventable but can cost long-term pain to patients. It is tough to determine who is liable here, the doctor or the hospital. Recognizing the liable entity may clear your legal options; you can contact Rochester Medical Malpractice lawyers who specialize in these cases. If your surgeon’s treatment of you was below the standard of care and you were harmed by it, it is considered Medical Malpractice.
Doctor’s liability
Doctors are more or less liable for every surgical error because they are responsible for performing the surgery safely. Sadly, they sometimes fail and cause surgical errors.
A doctor is liable to get sued if he makes a mistake during the surgery or after immediate postoperative care that causes you harm; you can take legal action against that doctor. In this case, you must have reliable legal representation, as the negligent party will also have a strong solicitor.
Hospital’s liability
At times, hospitals try to exclude themselves from the negligent doctor. The hospital may still be held liable if you can prove that they knew about the doctor’s negligence. If the hospital continued to work with the doctor who had a history of surgical errors, they are also liable.
Types of surgical complications that lead to lawsuits
If the surgeon is negligent, many things can go wrong in surgery. Types of surgery errors that can lead to lawsuits include:
- Wrong-site surgery: Nurses prepare surgery patients by marking the intended location of the incision on their bodies. However, this method can fail if the ink smudges or the instructions are away from the incision site. These errors are not supposed to happen, but they do.
- Wrong surgical procedure: A surgeon can perform the wrong procedure if there is a miscommunication during the surgery.
- Wrong patient: Several surgeries need to be scheduled simultaneously, and sometimes the doctor or patient is taken to the wrong operating room due to miscommunication or production pressure. Although errors of this type are rare, they can still happen.
- Leaving surgical tools inside the patient’s body: This error is probably the most common that everyone has heard of. A surgeon accidentally leaves anything/tool in the patient’s body during the surgery. These include needles, clamps, sponges, etc. Traditionally the process was to count the tools before and after the surgery, yet it has failed multiple times. If the error has happened, it may require follow-up surgery to retrieve the object left.