Common Surgical Errors in Rhode Island

Finding a good doctor that you can trust is hard. One can spend months trying out specialists before one finds the perfect fit. This process is even more important once a patient realizes that they need to surgery. A trustworthy surgeon is absolutely necessary, but even the best in their profession make mistakes. Whether by incompetence or by mere oversight, there are several different mistakes that a surgeon can make when they are holding the knife.

Even in the most common and simple surgeries, surgeons can cause harm to patients. For example, in a tonsil removal surgery a surgeon could forget to make sure that the patient has enough oxygen. That error can cause life altering brain damage or even death of the patient. While this error is thankfully not common, there are some forms or surgical errors that persist across all types of surgeries. The four most common types of errors are:

• Surgical tools and objects being left inside of the body: It can be as small as a surgical sponge or as large as a scalpel, a surgeon that does not keep perfect track of his tools can close some of them inside of a patient during surgery. Foreign objects can cause infection, severe pain, and in some cases death if left inside the body for too long.
• Operating on the wrong part of the body: A common practice in surgery is for doctors and nurses to repeat the correct surgery site before opening a patient for surgery. Of course, that practice can be forgotten or confused, which can lead operations on the wrong site. Imagine a kidney transplant removing the wrong kidney or opening the wrong gum for a molar removal. These incidents have devastating impacts, since the underlying pathology remains while irreparable harm has been done to healthy tissue.
• Wrong patient surgery: If doctors rush into a surgery theater or look at the wrong medical records before putting a patient under the knife, that surgeon can perform a surgery that patient was not supposed to get. This is more common than one might believe, and if the incorrect surgery does not treat the original issue, this issue that lead to devastating consequences.
• Anesthesia errors: If a patient receives too much medical during the administration general anesthesia, the patient could not get enough oxygen to their brain leading to brain damage or even death. If the patient does not get enough medication, they may gain consciousness during their surgery and face severe pain. In some cases, a patient may be paralyzed but conscious while being operated upon.

Not all cases of medical malpractice can turn into major cases. The injuries resulting from the negligence must be severe enough that the damages will be high. Medical malpractice cases typically require a law firm to hire experts and expend significant resources in discovery and preparation for the case.

All of these common issues can be dealt with an experienced and well-trained lawyer. The law office of Louis W. Grande regularly provides free consultations to injured patients who believe they may have been the victims of medical malpractice. Regardless of whether the firm is able to take the case, callers are never asked to provide any up-front retainer fee or other charge in order to get advice.