Common Anesthesia Errors By Florida Providers

Anesthesia enables Florida health care providers to perform surgeries and diagnostic procedures that would never even be possible without some pain management for the patient. However, in a recent study published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers discovered that around 2,140 patients were affected by mistakes in administering anesthesia annually. There were approximately 130 fatalities resulting from these errors, but deaths fortunately declined from the start to end of the study period. Still, researchers noted that the risk of anesthesia errors is still a concern in clinical settings.

Many people wonder how these mistakes can happen, and the simple explanation is negligence. When anesthesiologists deviate from the applicable standard of care, they can cause serious harm to patients. You should consult with a Miami anesthesia errors attorney about your options, but a look at frequent mistakes is useful.

Complications from Various Types of Anesthesia

To understand how mistakes can impact a patient, it’s necessary to understand the circumstances under which they can occur.

• Local Anesthesia: When medication is focused on a specific area, the implications for a patient tend to affect that part of the body. Local anesthesia is typically safe, with few side effects. However, errors in administering a large dose can cause the anesthesia drug to be absorbed into the bloodstream. The complications can extend into other bodily systems, affecting the patient’s breathing, blood pressure, and heart rate.
• Regional Anesthesia: Reducing sensation may be required when a medical procedure impacts a larger area of the body, which is why an anesthesiologist would inject the drug near a network of nerves or the spinal cord. If the physician damages a nerve during administration, the patient may lose sensation, experience weakness, or endure pain. Like the local version, an overdose of regional anesthesia could lead affect other systems of the body.
• General Anesthesia: The complications with improper administration of general anesthesia can be the most harmful for the patient. The point of this medication is to slow certain functions, including the “gag” reflex. This increases the risk that food, saliva, or other material will become stuck in the throat, a condition referred to as aspiration. An anesthesiologist might implement a tube to prevent aspiration, but improper insertion can lead to harm for the patient.
  

Additional complications that can result from general anesthesia errors include fluctuations in blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, stroke, or heart attack.

Common Errors with Anesthesia

 There is a lot of prep work that goes on before a physician administers anesthesia, since the patient’s age, weight, medical history, underlying conditions, and many other factors impact the medication. Failure to thoroughly evaluate your medical records and comply with other protocols often results in: 

• A doctor applying too much of the medication, possibly leading to anesthesia overdose
• Administering a dose that is too low, putting the patient at risk of anesthesia awareness
• Using the wrong anesthesia based upon the medications a patient currently takes, causing adverse drug reactions
• Allergic reactions
• Not administering the anesthesia according to timing of the procedure, leading to delays in the medication becoming effective
• Failure to properly monitor the patient and vital signs during the surgery

In addition, anesthesia errors could be the result of flawed equipment, in which case you could have a medical malpractice claim for defective medical devices against a manufacturer.

Implications for the Patient

General anesthesia affects activities and functioning in the brain to prevent pain, so brain damage is a common consequence when health care providers fail to properly administer anesthesia. Other implications include: 

• Damage to the heart, liver, kidneys, and other organs
• Hypoxia, a condition that results from low oxygen levels that kill off brain cells
• Cerebral palsy and other birth injuries when administered to a woman in labor
• Ringing in the ears
• Rashes and inflammation
• Heart arrhythmia, abnormal heart rate, and pulmonary conditions
• Spinal cord injuries, when a provider implements spinal anesthesia to block pain
• Coma
• Death

Fortunately, in a successful med mal claim for anesthesia mistakes, you may qualify to recover compensation for medical costs, lost income, pain and suffering, and other losses.

Seeking Compensation for Your Losses After an Anesthesia Error

Many mistakes in administering anesthesia are actionable, so you could have legal remedies through a medical malpractice claim. You need to prove that the anesthesiologist’s conduct represents a departure from how another reasonable physician would have acted under the same circumstances. If successful, you may qualify to recover for your medical costs, lost wages, pain and suffering, lost income, and other damages. 

Discuss Legal Options with a Florida Anesthesia Errors Lawyer

For more information on your rights as a patient and legal options for seeking compensation, please contact the Miami medical malpractice lawyers at Freidin Brown, P.A. We can schedule a no-cost case evaluation for you at our offices. Our attorneys can advise you and explain the medical malpractice claims process once we review your circumstances.

Source:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31485589/