Other Medical Malpractice
The range of medical errors leading to injury is as broad as medicine itself. Some of the more common areas are surgical injuries, post surgical infections, nursing negligence, improper drug prescriptions, orthopedic injuries, and radiology failures. Two of the most common will be discussed in general here - surgical negligence and post surgical infections.
Surgical injuries are relatively common. Usually, one of the written risks of surgery presented to a patient is surgical injury to some of the surrounding anatomical structures. The knife can slip, even under the most careful hands. Cases of surgical negligence become viable medical malpractice cases when the surgical injury is either not appreciated or worse, ignored. If a surgeon cuts the wrong structure and fails to diagnose it, that can and often is negligence. If a surgeon cuts a structure without properly identifying it causing harm, that can be negligence as well. On the other hand, if a surgeon cuts the wrong structure during surgery, immediately recognizes and does everything he can to repair it, that will present a much more difficult case of negligence to prove.
Many times the surgical error is apparent in the dictated operative note. The records must be carefully examined in order to determine whether there was a deviation from the standard of care causing injury.
Hospitals are notorious nests of fairly virulent bacterial infections. It is usually not negligent to contract an infection during a surgery. The more common area of true medical negligence is failing to make a timely diagnosis of an infectious process and intervene before severe damage is done. Chest and abdominal infections are particularly worrisome. They require careful monitoring of the signs and symptoms of infection such as temperature, white blood cell count, presence of pus, and other factors. If these signs and symptoms are present and are not aggressively worked up, the infection can spread and can lead to a permanent disability and even death.
Medical Malpractice cases can arise from negligence in just about any medical subspecialty. If you have questions about whether injuries you have are the result of medical negligence, please call experienced trial attorney Ken Hovermale toll free at (207) 780-9900 to discuss the merits of your potential Medical Malpractice case.
- Read a case profile for surgical injury medical malpractice lawsuit
- Read a case profile for an emergency room medical malpractice lawsuit
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