Medical Malpractice Lawsuits

Decent Essays
If you recently underwent surgery, and your surgeon performed a medical error, you may be able to file a medical malpractice lawsuit against them. Here are four common surgical errors that often lead to successful medical malpractice lawsuits.

#1 Wrong Procedure

One of the more common surgical errors is having the wrong procedure performed on you. This can occur for a variety of reasons. Perhaps your initial doctor diagnosed your incorrectly, and sent you in for a procedure that you didn’t need or that didn’t correctly treat your symptoms. In this case, you would want to file a medical malpractice suit against the doctor that sent you in for the procedure as well as the doctor that did the procedure without checking to see if it was right for you.

This could also happen due to a miscommunication between the doctor who prescribed the surgery and the
…show more content…
With a foreign-body medical malpractice suit, you would be able to pursue it against any of the doctors or nurses that participated in your surgery.

#3 Wrong-Site

Finally, another common surgical error is when the operation is the correct operation is performed on the wrong location on your body. This is often referred to as a “wrong-site” or “wrong-side” error. This is an error that should never occur and can be prevented with effective communication.

The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare in 2011 estimated that wrong-site surgeries happen at a rate of about forty per week. This can have a range of consequences which can be really serious on your health.

If you recently underwent surgery, and the wrong procedure was performed, a foreign body was left inside of you, or the surgery was performed on the wrong location, you need to speak with a personal injury and medical malpractice attorney to discuss your legal

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Phr209 Discussion 1

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Discussion One Brenda Doering PHR209 Andrea Chan Part 1: Chapter 10 discusses the mechanism of drug interaction and contributing factors. Read Chapter 10 and in your own words explain why surgical patients and patients hospitalized for infections are considered high risk for drug-drug and/or drug-food interactions. Part 2: Next, find an article in a medical journal or on a drug information website that involves one or more patients experiencing a severe drug interaction. Discuss how the article or research affects patient risk associated with drug-drug and/or drug-food interactions.…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    When people undergo medical procedures, they put their lives in someone else’s hands. Though everyone deserves the highest standard of care, medical negligence is a very real problem around the country. If you sustained new or worse injuries because of a healthcare professional’s negligence, Cronin Fried Sekiya Kekina & Fairbanks in Honolulu, HI, will help. At Cronin Fried Sekiya Kekina & Fairbanks, they help clients pursue justice from doctors and hospitals for gross negligence and misconduct.…

    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Usually we hear of stories where physicians get sued because they fail to abide by a patient’s wishes, however, the article “All-Time Craziest Frivolous Lawsuits”, (Krane 2014), discusses how a physician was sued for abiding to a patient’s wishes. The article provides insight into how some malpractice lawsuits impact physicians who try to provide patients with standard of care, only to have care refused by them and then later have legal action taken against them for complying with their wishes. The author best explains how physicians are affected by malpractice lawsuits in stating, “The assault on their reputations and the emotional upheaval they face can be traumatic even when the lawsuit is obviously fraudulent” (Krane, 2014, p. 1). This particular article discusses the story of a man who cut his hand off because he “saw the number ‘666’ written on it and stated that he heard voices which told him to cut it off. When the on-call surgeon was called in for a consult, the patient stated that if the surgeon reattached his arm, “he would cut it off again” (Krane, 2014, p. 1).…

    • 401 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    "Complications: A Surgeon's Note on an Imperfect Science" is a collection of stories and personal essays written by Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgical resident. Gawande describes his experiences in the field, in learning and interpreting medical mysteries and facing uncertainties, and the philosophical questions he encounters from these experiences. In "Complications," Gawande lays out several ways in which medicine is imperfect and will continue to be imperfect. In Part I "How We Learn," Gawande discusses that medicine will always be prone to errors so long as it is performed by humans. Humans are not perfect, but striving to be perfect requires practice and learning.…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Inouye alleges medical malpractice against Dr. Black. In order for malpractice to be warranted, there must be clear violation of duty, deviation from the standard of care, direct causation and damages. The plaintiff argued that Dr. Black violated his duty and deviated from the standard of care which was the direct cause of the resulting damages of the surgery. Identification of Ethical Issue…

    • 542 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Dr Truman's Surgery

    • 92 Words
    • 1 Pages

    The resident started the surgery because the patient was critically injured. He continued with the surgery even though the surgeon on call was not present yet. But, did he has another option? In order to save the patient’s life he has to continue with the surgery. The case doesn’t provide much of information about the resident actions after the surgery.…

    • 92 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Joint replacement lawyer California Surgery for joint replacement is big business in the United States, and California is leading the way. More and more people need relief every year from the joint pain and stiffness of aging, disease and damage due to an accident. Not all joint replacements are successful. If you're having complications after surgery, you may be entitled to compensation. Joint Replacements Most of the joints in your body can be surgically replaced with a prosthetic device.…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Patient C.S. age 49, diagnosed with symptomatic gallbladder disease, underwent a laparoscopic cholecystectomy performed by surgeon M.M. The definition of a primary diagnosis is the condition, after study, which required the admission to a hospital. This patient had a primary diagnosis of symptomatic gallbladder disease, which is caused by gallstones or cholelithiasis. Gallstones are deposits of hardened fluid within the gallbladder that can block the common bile duct. The gallbladder is a pear-shaped organ located under the liver.…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Hi Amanda. This was an interesting case. The defendant's reason for the medical error is definitely absurd. I believe that if he knew that the patient had blood vessels in atypical positions, then that should have been cause for him to carefully ensure that the correct artery was going to be bypassed. A second opinion from another surgeon would may have helped with this situation as well.…

    • 74 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This paper will discuss liability and negligence in the healthcare field as well as negligence issue in the healthcare field. Liability is defined as a potential for a lawsuit (Dunn 114). Liability can be found just about anywhere and is a concerning area in today’s age. Healthcare workers are very familiar to this word and been familiarized throughout their careers with this word. I can’t be a scary thing to think about in this field the potential to be sued from an employee level all the way to a corporate level.…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Medical Malpractice Theory

    • 1563 Words
    • 7 Pages

    For example, in Wright's study, they found that for every 100 patients, there is one patient that files a claim when they suffer from medical malpractice (Wright, 2011). A similar study conducted by The California Medical Association found even better results as one in every 125 patients suffer from medical malpractice (Wright, 2011). This is impressive as the law profession receives upwards to six claims of negligence per a 100 clients (Kritzer & Vidmar, 2015). The problem here and why these researches are relevant to this study's research question is that despite the low number of medical malpractice claims, there is actually a large amount of medical malpractice that exists; a notion supported by 30 years’ worth of empirical research (Kritzer & Vidmar, 2015). A potential cause for these low claims is that it is hard to establish medical negligence as the claimant would need to prove before the judges, causation beyond a reasonable doubt, the highest standard of proof in law (Hartwell, 2005).…

    • 1563 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Wrong Site Surgery: Problems and Solutions Wrong site surgery (WSS) has been around since surgery itself but the statistics that accompany it are relatively new. Before 1999 there was no number for surgery associated injuries, deaths, and near misses because there was no process or system for recognizing and reporting the incidents (Hughes, Mulloy, 2008). Wrong site surgery can be defined in many ways with many subcategories. One definition is, “surgery performed on the wrong side or site of the body, wrong surgical procedure performed, and surgery performed on the wrong patient, any invasive procedure that exposes patients to more than minimal risk, including procedures performed in settings other than the OR, such as a special procedures unit, an endoscopy unit, and an interventional…

    • 478 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    How To Paralyze My Face

    • 62 Words
    • 1 Pages

    If while surgically removing a lump from my face the surgeon cut a nerve I would not sue. The paralysis was a risk I took when choosing to get the lump removed. The surgeon didn't intentionally paralyze my face, so why should I intentionally ruin his life. With him paying out of pocket it could very well cause great hardship to…

    • 62 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Did you know that about 98,000 people die every year from medical mistakes? The medical profession deals with lots of life and death situations. Surgeries for the brain, heart, and lungs can be fatal, but when your surgeon knows what he is doing, then you can easily put your life in his hands. However, if your surgeon accidentally works on your liver instead of your heart than your life is being put at risk. Health care workers should always be held accountable for their mistakes, because their mistakes could cost someone their life.…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ever go to the doctor and they tell you that you need surgery, but they don’t tell you the potential risk of having that surgery? Who is at fault here if the doctor fails to tell you the risk and the procedures? Would it be the doctors fault; would it be the patients fault or would it be both? Knowing the risk and procedure is very crucial information. You need to know everything about your procedure.…

    • 1543 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays