Every year more than 4,000 people who undergo surgery are injured from a surgical error. These preventable mistakes are known as “never events” – shocking errors that should never have happened (e.g., amputating the wrong leg of a patient.)
Common surgical errors
The most common errors include:
- Performing surgery on the wrong patient
- Performing the wrong procedure
- Performing surgery on the wrong body part
- Unnecessary surgery
- Leaving surgical equipment (e.g., sponges or instruments) inside a patient
- Using unsterile surgical instruments
- Damaging nerves during procedure
- Cutting or puncturing organs that were not involved in the procedure
- Failing to administer the correct dose of anesthesia
- Failing to monitor equipment or vital signs
Causes of surgical errors
There are a number of circumstances which contribute to surgical errors. They include:
Insufficient pre-operative planning
Pre-surgery preparation is crucial to the success of a surgical procedure. Without it, a surgeon may be unable to handle complications which can occur during a procedure.
Lack of necessary equipment
The surgical team may not have all the necessary equipment when it is needed by the surgeon.
Incompetence
A surgeon may have not performed a particular procedure very often and simply lacks the skill to perform the surgery properly. Not all surgeons have the necessary skills or experience to adequately perform a given procedure.
Lack of communication
Poor communication amongst members of the surgical team can play a major role in wrong-procedure, wrong-site and wrong-patient surgeries. It has the potential to result in serious, sometimes deadly consequences.
Failure to follow all steps
Surgeons may mistakenly conclude that certain steps during a surgery are not necessary.
Insufficient staffing
Some errors result from not having enough support staff, such as operating room nurses and others who are responsible for patient care. Staffing mistakes can also harm the patient before or after the procedure.
Fatigue
Surgeons often work long shifts. The resulting fatigue can make the surgeon error-prone.
Drugs/alcohol
To cope with the stress that is common in their profession, some surgeons may turn to drugs and alcohol. Drugs may also be used to battle fatigue.
Surgical Error Versus Bad Outcome
Not all surgeries result in a positive outcome. However, such an outcome does not necessarily prove that a mistake was made or that medical malpractice occurred. What’s more, a surgical error does not always rise to the level of malpractice. If the mistake did not fall below the “medical standard of care” or the patient was not harmed by it, there is no malpractice.
The “medical standard of care” is defined as the level and type of care that a reasonably competent and skilled health care professional, with a similar background and in the same medical community, would have provided under the circumstances that led to the alleged malpractice.
Proving a surgical error claim
As with any medical malpractice claim, surgical error cases require that four elements be met:
- duty
- breach of duty
- causation
- damages
Every medical professional owes their patients a “duty of care”. When a surgeon deviates from or falls below the standard of care, they are liable for any damages suffered by the patient as a result. In order to recover compensation in a medical malpractice claim, plaintiffs must prove that there is a direct cause between their injuries (or other damages) and the medical professional’s breach of duty. In order to prevail in a medical malpractice lawsuit, the plaintiff must show that he or she suffered actual damages – be they economic (financial damages) or non-economic (pain and suffering).
Surgical error cases can be very complex. If you believe that you suffered a serious injury as a result of such an error, call Comitz Law at (570) 829-1111 or email info@comitzlaw.com to speak with an experienced medical malpractice attorney.