Medical Malpractice Lawyer Serving Vermont

Surgical errors, and/or treatment after surgery, can often form the basis for a medical malpractice claim. Some surgical errors can result in little or no consequences. However, some surgical errors can have a devastating impact on the life of the patient harmed during surgery as well as their family members. When a surgical error occurs and results in a significant injury or worsening of some medical condition, an experienced medical malpractice attorney should be consulted as soon as possible.

Surgical errors or surgical mistakes can come in many forms and happen in many ways. One of the most extreme is when an operation is performed on the wrong person, or the wrong body part is operated on or removed, or the wrong surgical procedure is performed. Retention of a foreign object after surgery or death intraoperatively, or immediately post-operatively, in a normal healthy patient, is also an example that may come under the surgical error umbrella.

These types of medical disasters are included in the category of “Never Events” or “Serious Reportable Events (SRE).” These types of surgical malpractice are categorized as such because they should simply never happen. Such a designation, established by the National Quality Forum and used by CMS to identify and prevent such occurrences, means that the consequences flowing from those results should be easily avoided by surgeons and other participants in the surgery simply by following established protocols designed to prevent just such medical incidents.

Surgical errors also occur when body parts or structures adjacent to the area being operated on are damaged or destroyed. When damage to organs or tissues occur as a result of an operative procedure, due to the failure to perform the correct type of surgery indicated, or because that procedure has been performed without the requisite due care and skill that would be expected of a reasonably competent surgeon or health care provider, the injured patient may have a viable medical malpractice case.

Certain surgeries carry risks inherent to the surgery itself and can result in damage, even when it is the proper surgical procedure and performed with the requisite skill and care. In those cases, the mere fact that a patient suffers from a condition post-surgery that was identified as a possibility will not, in and of itself, form the basis for a medical malpractice claim. However, where an adjacent organ or structure is inadvertently nicked or lacerated, or an infection sets in post-surgery, and those may be known and disclosed risks of the surgical procedure performed, a patient may have a meritorious medical malpractice claim because there was a failure to timely discover and treat these conditions. Often, such a patient will be discharged from the hospital prematurely, despite obvious signs, symptoms, and complaints, which should have led to the timely discovery and treatment that would have prevented serious medical complications.

These are just some examples of the types of medical malpractice cases and issues that David has handled successfully for his clients.