When planning for surgery, it is amazing the amount of checking, verifying, and rechecking that hospitals do now. Although, time-consuming and a bit unnerving, the thorough handling of surgical planning should make most people breathe a sigh of relief, and usually does. After all, if the staff is this thorough during the planning stage, how methodical is the surgery itself. This is usually the case, but unfortunately for some, the thoroughness ended before the surgery began.
The frequency of surgical errors may not seem like a big deal. With roughly only one in every 100,000 surgeries going awry, the instance of surgical error hardly seems worth discussing. However, that number only represents inpatient surgical procedures done in an operating room setting. This statistic does not account for the thousands of other procedures done in ambulatory care, the emergency room, and radiology. When the number of surgical errors reported in these other areas is included in those from the operating room, the overall instance of surgical error is much higher. One study suggests that when combined nearly half of all procedures experience some type of surgical error.
Although the true number of annual surgical errors basically go unknown, the fact that there are any at all is cause for concern. For individuals that have experienced a surgical error while in any area of care, a medical malpractice attorney may be able to help. Through the use of an attorney’s skills and resources, negligent practices can be stopped, responsible parties can be identified, and compensation can be awarded. For more information about a possible medical malpractice case, contact a trusted attorney, well versed in malpractice and personal injury.
