Surgery is something no patient wants to face. With surgery comes the increased risk of complications, side effects, and risks. By its very nature, it is quite dangerous. When patients require surgery, they place their very life in the hands of the surgeons, doctors, and other medical team in the operating room. They trust that these healthcare professionals will keep them safe. No one expects a mistake to occur that would cause harm.
Unfortunately, surgical mistakes are quite common. When they occur, injured patients can file a claim against the professional or healthcare facility that harmed them. If you have been hurt, our West Palm Beach surgical error lawyer can help you recover the financial compensation you are entitled to.
Determining Liability for Surgical Errors
All medical professionals have a duty to provide patients with the very best standard of care. To determine if a healthcare professional breached that duty and acted negligently, it must be determined if another professional in the same field would have acted in a different manner. When that is the case, injured patients can file a claim for compensation.
Healthcare professionals are not the only parties who can be held liable for surgical errors. Many different medical devices are used in operating rooms and when any of them are faulty or defective, they can cause serious harm. For example, patients who require surgery are often placed on ventilators to help them breathe. When a ventilator is defective, the patient will not receive sufficient oxygen and will suffer serious harm, even fatality, as a result.
Injured Due to a Surgical Error? Contact Our Expert Lawyers for Help Today!
Types of Surgical Errors
Any act of negligence can result in a surgical error, but there are some of these mistakes that are more common than others. The five most common surgical errors are as follows:
- Foreign objects left in a patient’s body
- Wrong patient surgery
- Wrong site surgery
- Anesthesia errors
- Nerve damage due to scalpel errors
Why Do Surgical Errors Happen?
Again, the vast majority of surgical errors are caused by the negligent actions or inactions of medical professionals. This negligence can take many forms, but the most common of them include:
- Failing to review a patient’s full medical history, including any allergies to medication, prior to surgery
- A lack of communication about the patient’s vital signs, medication needed, and more between the healthcare staff members in the operating room
- A lack of medical knowledge, often as a result of failing to keep current with medical trends and procedures
- Fatigue, particularly when a surgery will take several hours
Due to the nature of surgery, patients are not always awake when an error occurs and so, they may not know what happened. It is critical to determine how a surgical error occurred, as that is the only way to determine who to hold liable.
Our Surgical Error Lawyer in West Palm Beach Can Help You Claim Full Compensation
No one should ever be hurt due to a surgical mistake. If you or someone you love has been injured, our West Palm Beach surgical error lawyer at Freidin Brown, P.A. can help you claim the full compensation you deserve. Call us now or contact us online to schedule a free consultation.