Crowson Law Group

It is commonly said that there is no such thing as minor surgery. Whether it’s getting an appendix removed or having a hip replacement, all surgical procedures are serious; more so if an error occurs during such a surgery. However, is any surgical error considered to be medical malpractice? This article will determine when a surgical error can be said to have reached the level of medical malpractice.

It must be noted that in all definitions and scopes of the term “medical malpractice” the constant is whether the medical treatment given adhered to an accepted “medical standard of care” and if not, the substandard treatment must have resulted in some form of harm to the patient. Therefore, if a mistake was made and the mistake does not fall below the medical standard of care or the patient was not harmed by the substandard medical treatment, there is no medical malpractice.

A basic definition of the standard of care is “the type and level of care an ordinary, prudent, health care professional, with the same training and experience, would provide under similar circumstances in the same community”. Therefore, if you find that the surgical error violated the standard of care the main issue thereafter is whether such an error caused you harm or not.

A surgical error can be defined as a “preventable mistake during surgery”. This falls outside the scope of known risks relating to surgery. With respect to known risks, a patient signs an informed consent that states that he or she understands that surgery involves certain known risks. Surgical errors. However, go beyond the known risks of surgery; in fact surgical errors are unexpected.

Expert surgeons state that “no two surgeries are identical and, as such, every surgical error and the underlying causes of the error are unique”. That said, there are several common factors that account for many of the surgical errors that occur. Some of these include:

Incompetence – this is where a surgeon has not performed a procedure enough times and thus lacks the skill to perform the surgery successfully.

Improper work process – surgeons can mistakenly decide that some standard steps in a procedure are unnecessary and take shortcuts. This, however, can be very costly in surgery.

Fatigue – this is very common as surgeons are known to work very long shifts, which results in fatigue. In medicine, as in any field, tired people are prone to making mistakes as compared to well-rested people.

Neglect – sometimes surgeons are simply not as careful as they ought to be. As a result, their neglect can manifest itself by failing to ensure that their instruments are properly sterilized or by a decision to use surgical equipment that is known to be defective.

If you were the victim of a surgical error and have questions about whether it is medical malpractice, you should start looking for Alaska personal injury lawyer experienced in medical malpractice. These cases can be very complex from a legal and procedural standpoint and require the expertise of a medical malpractice lawyer.

Crowson Law Group is a law firm of professionals who handle personal injury matters including complex matters relating to medical malpractice. For more information about Crowson Law Group, visit Crowsonlaw.Com.

Address: Crowson Law Group
637 A St.
Anchorage, Ak, 99501
Email: james@crowsonlaw.com
Tel: (907) 677-9393
Fax: (907) 677-9310
website: http://www.crowsonlaw.com/

This release was published on openPR.