Causes of Surgical Errors
In a surgery, wherever the spot of the surgery will be conducted, all is clearly a big deal whether it is an appendix removal surgery or even a bone marrow transplant, whatever the intensity and risk of a surgery, it is a big deal for the patient as it is one’s life is at stake. Thus, there are no room for errors or committing blunder even in the smallest detail. Aside from actual surgery errors, if the medical practitioner or the institute itself has indaquancy in preparations, tools, countermeasures, and other formalities needed for a medical surgery then they still deemed as they have committed medical malpractice.
Medical malpractice is a collective term for any errors or negligence shown by a medical institute or a professional before, during, and after being involved or under their care and have caused the patient to sustain physical, emotional, mental damages or even death to a patient. A medical malpractice suit, on the other hand, is a legal action against the medical professional or institute that has done physical, emotional, mental damages to the patient, filing a medical malpractice claim to grant you compensation pay is one optimal way to cover your medical expenses that was worsen by being a victim of medical malpractice. It is recommended to hire a lawyer, specifically an injury lawyer, to help you arrange everything from evidences of expenses and prove relationship with the medical professional or institute up to representing your claim to the defendant’s insurers.
Ryan Injury Lawyers is an Ohio based injury law firm that has been representing victims of medical malpractice as their clients. Call our office now for free legal consultation and quotation as Ohio medical malpractice law has one year limit to file a claim, it starts from the discovery of the damage. Our law firm doesn’t want people to pay expenses of damage themselves and want to serve them rightful justice to victims of medical malpractice.
Known Causes of Surgical Errors
Every surgery has different causes but it is either, minor or major, hence its developing or underlying potential problem too is either drastic or common. Here are some known reasons why surgical errors occur:
- Inexperience or Personal Problems (Medical Professional’s Own Problem)
One common reason why surgical error happens is because of the surgeon itself’s incompetence as he/she may lack experience on performing surgical procedure, lacking skill on a specific surgery location, or even nervous or mentally unstable at that time and as reasons go unreasonable, it might cause significant damage to the patient or even death at an extent. - Lacking Pre-surgery Planning and Preparation
In the field of medicine, it is said that every action requires in-depth preparation especially in a surgery where life of a patient is at stake and in hindsight, one’s career and institution’s name as well. Planning and preparation means reviewing patient’s current situation, the spot of surgery, and the steps of the said injury. Preparation of tools and cleaning as well, countermeasures against complications and off-board situations is also what good medical professionals does. - Bad Work Flow and Poor Communication among involved professionals
A medical professionals who didn’t integrate a chart for their work flow and shift may have a bad communication as well, let alone lesser efficient work flow observed. For work flow, people involved may be out for absence as they might not notice that they have their schedule for that surgery and might mess up if one of them is not present. - Fatigue and Lack of Eating
It is known for most that not only surgeon but also other medical professionals suffer from extreme fatigue at some day of the month inside the hospital as they take care of multiple people inside, especially small hospitals who are overpopulated, they even skip eating in some extreme cases just to serve their patients. As these events escalates, they feel tired and may likely to commit mistakes even at the most expensive times. - Under the influence of Alcohol or Drugs
Oftentimes, surgeons side with alcohol or even drugs to cope up with stress that they have accumulated in their job as one, or as means for staying up when having surgeries lined up, as these substances mess up one’s motor skills, coordination, and cognitive skills, they might commit mistakes unconsciously and regretful enough, it happens. - Deliberate Negligence
Aside from inexperience, one intrapersonal problem of surgeons is that they are oftentimes not careful. When they are in rush, they likely forget to check their instruments if it is clean or complete and might make mistake slicing other side of the site of surgery and it would cause another big problem.
Surgical Errors Example
- Wrong injection site and damaged significant muscle or inner part of the body
- Overdosing pre-surgery drugs such as anesthsia and post-surgery drugs
- Cutting wrong side of the surgery site and caused injury or bad bleeding
- Operating on the wrong patient