Medical mistakes prompting malpractice lawsuits happen every day in hospitals and doctor’s offices globally. Errors arising from medical care lead to serious injuries including disability and wrongful death. When faced with such a situation, it is advisable to hire medical malpractice experts. Here are some of the most common medical malpractice cases.
1. Emergency room malpractice
Individuals who visit an emergency room do so because they want immediate care. Unfortunately, the doctors in the facility might ignore the patient’s symptoms or fail to act fast enough. As such, the patients might suffer serious injuries and at times might pass on. These incidences are common, especially due to negligence.
2. Performing surgery on the wrong part
Wrong site surgical errors can lead to serious injuries and sometimes death. One such case was when a patient’s right ovary was to be removed because it had a cancerous tumor. The surgeon, however, operated on the left ovary. This left the woman without any ovary considering that the one that had been left was not in good shape. The lady sued the doctor for damages.
3. Anesthesia mistakes
The discovery of anesthesia brought forth a revolution in the medical field. Today, hospitals have a particular medical practitioner who administers anesthesia to patients who are going into surgery. When the anesthetist administers too much or too little anesthesia, medical malpractice might occur. Statistics show that one in every 200,000 patients die because of anesthesia complications.
Anesthesia is a crucial part of a surgical procedure. However, one may never get to hear about such mistakes until it affects someone close to them. The error might occur due to improper training, failure to read orders and poor communication between staff members.
4. Medical negligence
It refers to errors that arise because of lack of acute care. One such case is one of negligence by administrative staff in a fertility clinic. The lady came into the hospital to have an embryo that had her husband’s sperms transferred. The staff at the hospital mixed up the samples. Nine months later, when the woman’s child was born, there was no resemblance of the baby to the parents. The couple sued the clinic for negligence.
5. Leaving surgical tools inside the patient
There are also instances of negligence where the doctor leaves surgical instruments in the patient’s body after completing the surgery. Some common items left in the body include sponges, forceps, tubes, needles, clamps, tweezers, surgical gloves, drain tips, guide wires and surgical masks.
The consequences of leaving surgical items in a patient’s body can vary from harmless to fatal. Items that are left inside the body may cause severe pain, infection, fever, internal bleeding, and damage to internal organs, swelling and loss of part of an organ. The patient might require an additional surgery to extract the object. At times wrongful death may occur.