Five Common Surgical Errors: A Virginia-Based Medical Malpractice Attorney Tells You What to Watch For

Five Common Surgical Errors: A Virginia-Based Medical Malpractice Attorney Tells You What to Watch For

Many were shocked in 2009 when a series of Hearst newspaper investigative reports turned up statistics like "an estimated 200,000 Americans will die needlessly from preventable medical mistakes and hospital infections this year." Perhaps more shockingly -- or depressingly -- evidence of the kinds and causes of fatal errors in clinics, hospitals and other health care settings showed that the same mistakes keep happening for the same reasons.

Defective equipment, incomplete or inadequate training, sleep deprivation, time and financial pressures, and simple inexperience often lead to patient neglect and care that does not comport with best practices. Patients who are the victims of medical mistakes all too often incur disabilities, develop chronic pain and die.

Regardless of cause or outcome, the following five errors are most likely to occur whenever you go in for surgery. While you can do little to protect yourself from these problems by controlling the actions of your surgeon, anesthesiologist, nurses or surgical assistants, you can do some homework, as time allows, about the rates of these errors by visiting Hospital Compare. Never consent to undergo surgery in a facility or with a surgeon you have serious concerns about.

Before and after any surgical procedure, make sure you, your family and friends, and every doctor, nurse and pharmacist providing follow-up care is aware of the potential for these potential issues:

Anesthesia Complications: Brain damage can result from improperly dosed, administered or monitored anesthetic drugs and gasses. Signs of mental impairment include unresponsiveness, slurred speech, poor coordination and forgetfulness.

Wrong-Site Surgery: Pre-op procedures should ensure that surgeons only cut into, cut off or cut out the correct body part or mass such as a tumor. Too often -- meaning any time at all -- patients will awake in the post-operative ward only to find they have had a healthy lung kidney removed and the diseased organ left behind.

Infection: The greatest concern following any surgery is an infection. Operating rooms and hospital wards have to be kept beyond spotlessly clean to keep patients protected from deadly bacteria and viruses. Once a post-op infection develops, treating it can take months -- if treatment proves effective at all.

Organ Puncture: A poorly aimed laser, inexpertly wielded scalpel or roughly inserted tube or implant can do irreversible damage to healthy organs, tissue and blood vessels near the operation site. Lingering pain, internal bleeding and the development of new health problems can signal a punctured organ.

Tools Left in Your Body: It is nowhere nearly as uncommon as it should be for sponges, surgical implements and other foreign objects to get left behind in patients' bodies. The symptoms of having a foreign body inside one's own mirror those of a punctured organ but include recurrent infections.

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