Surgery is one of the most effective medical treatments available for many maladies. Conditions ranging from sports injuries to cancer may respond well to surgical operations. It is also one of the most invasive forms of medical care. There are many risks associated with surgery.
While most surgeries do not produce significant negative consequences, some surgeries lead to poor medical outcomes for patients. In a small percentage of those cases, egregious mistakes on the part of the surgical team might be the reason for the poor outcome.
Despite having access to facilities that would astound those who practiced medicine just a few decades ago, modern surgeons are still capable of making life-altering mistakes when treating their patients. Many things can go wrong during a surgery, but the three concerning mistakes detailed below occur an average of dozens of times per week in the United States and are almost always preventable.
1. Wrong-site mistakes
Many medical facilities require that patients either mark themselves with a permanent marker before undergoing anesthesia or approve markings made by professionals for their operation.
This extra step is to prevent scenarios in which health care professionals operate on the wrong part of the body. Such mistakes can cause severe injury and can leave a patient unable to undergo the treatment they initially required.
2. Wrong procedure mistakes
Sometimes, doctors mix up patients or procedures. Errors in medical record keeping or busy schedules might contribute to such mistakes.
The surgeon performs a completely incorrect procedure on the patient. Depending on the procedure the patient receives and the procedure they should undergo, the mistake can have major consequences for the patient’s long-term prognosis.
3. Items left behind
Surgical teams often use several different tools to conduct a procedure, ranging from gauze and clamps to specialized balloons and scalpels.
Sometimes, healthcare professionals complete a procedure and close an incision with foreign objects still left inside the patient’s body. Mistakes involving items left behind typically require a second procedure to remove the items and can lead to major injuries and infections.
Preventable and egregious surgical errors are often an actionable form of medical malpractice. Reviewing the situation to determine if medical malpractice occurred can help people seek out compensation for the losses caused by their doctors.