Patients today are fortunate to have access to advanced medical procedures that can restore their health in case of injury or illness. However, when a surgeon or healthcare professional makes an error during a surgical operation, a patient’s condition can worsen significantly.
If you suspect your doctor made a surgical mistake that caused you harm, review your legal options with a skilled medical malpractice attorney at Zoll & Kranz, LLC. A Toledo surgical error lawyer could help guide you through the medical negligence claims process.
What Is a Surgical Mistake?
When patients undergo surgery, they entrust their lives to the surgical team. They trust their surgeons will do everything possible to keep them safe, improve their illness, or fix their injury. While no surgery is risk-free, surgical teams should minimize potential dangers in the operating room. Although not every surgery can proceed perfectly, surgeons and their staff should adhere to the reasonable standard of care. They must take measures to protect patients from preventable harm.
A surgical mistake happens when medical workers provide substandard patient care before, during, or after a medical operation. Some surgical mistakes result from a surgeon’s careless actions, such as making an incision in the wrong location. Other surgical errors happen when a medical team fails to act, such as overlooking a patient’s adverse reaction to anesthesia.
A proactive surgical error attorney in Toledo could investigate the medical mistake to see if it amounts to surgical malpractice. They could review medical records, consult with relevant medical experts, and assess whether the surgical team’s conduct was inappropriate.
Common Types of Surgical Mistakes in Toledo
Various surgical errors can lead to devastating health consequences for a patient. Some frequently encountered mistakes include:
- Leaving a foreign object in a patient’s body
- Operating on the wrong patient or body part
- Careless mistakes by a surgeon leading to inadvertent organ or blood vessel damage
- Anesthesia errors involving improper dosage or administering incorrect medication
- Infections caused by non-sterile operating rooms, intensive care units, or recovery rooms
Hospitals should implement comprehensive policies in every operating room to minimize the risk of careless errors. For instance, most hospitals double check the patient’s identity and intended surgery before beginning an operation. Many hospitals even mark the body part. Failure to perform these simple checks could cause a surgeon to operate on the wrong patient or body part. In addition, hospitals often establish standard procedures for counting tools and instruments before and after an operation to ensure that no foreign object—such as surgical sponges—is left behind inside a patient’s body.
An experienced Toledo surgical mistake lawyer could review the actions taken by the surgical team to see if they acted negligently.
Contact a Toledo Surgical Error Attorney Today
Although every surgery has some degree of risk, patients should trust that their doctors and healthcare professionals are working diligently to minimize them.
If your surgeon, or another medical worker, acted carelessly during your operation, resulting in an injury, consult an experienced law group for help. Contact a Toledo surgical error lawyer at Zoll & Kranz, LLC, who could advocate for your rights.