When you go in for surgery, you’re trusting complete strangers with your body and health. Those strangers might be medical professionals, but they’re human and capable of making mistakes. When something goes wrong, it’s easy to assume it was just a standard risk or bad luck, but that’s not always true. Some surgical errors are preventable, and if they happen, it might cross the line into medical malpractice.
If you’ve been injured by a surgical error and are wondering if it was malpractice, here’s how to find that line.
Talk to a lawyer first
If you suspect something went wrong during your surgery that should have been avoidable, a lawyer is your best source of support. Don’t rush to Reddit to ask for opinions or post on social media. Search for a local medical malpractice attorney and get a consultation to discuss your case. You need legal clarity, not random opinions.
It’s difficult to assess your own case because you need to understand a lot of complex laws and standards. Even when you have all of your medical records, interpreting them in light of malpractice is challenging without legal experience.
Understand how surgical malpractice is established
Your team of doctors had an obligation to provide competent care. To establish malpractice, you need to prove that they breached their duty of care in a way that directly caused your injury. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. It often requires expert testimony to establish what a competent surgeon would have done, and that if not for your surgeon’s negligence, you would not have been harmed. You must also prove that you suffered actual harm from your injury, like pain, medical bills, lost wages, and emotional suffering.
When you talk to a lawyer, they’ll ask you about your situation, your medical needs, timelines, and more. They’ll compare what you share against known case outcomes to assess if you have a good case. If your case seems solid, they’ll want to get more information from you and will probably suggest moving forward with a lawsuit.
Know what counts as a surgical error
Not every poor outcome counts as malpractice, but certain types of errors are generally recognized as preventable deviations from the standard of care. Common surgical errors include:
- Operating on the wrong site. Wrong-site surgeries occur approximately 40 times per week in the U.S. and are caused by communication breakdowns.
- Performing the wrong operation. Sometimes surgical teams perform the wrong operation on a patient.
- Leaving surgical instruments inside the body. When surgeons leave tools inside a person’s body, it can cause infections and other problems that require additional surgeries to correct.
- Anesthesia errors. Errors in dosing and monitoring patients under anesthesia can cause brain damage, cardiac arrest, and even death.
- Nerve damage. Severing or harming nerves can cause chronic pain and loss of bodily function.
- Post-op infections. Serious post-operative infections are often caused by retained surgical instruments, but not always.
- Organ puncture. Sometimes surgeons accidentally puncture an organ.
These situations are serious breakdowns and should never happen.
Know when “known risk” becomes negligence
Before an operation, doctors will explain what complications are possible or even likely. However, known risks aren’t the same as preventable mistakes. For example, ignoring a pre-existing condition or other risk factor that leads to complications can be considered malpractice. What would have been a recoverable complication can be life-threatening for someone with a contraindicated condition.
If you found out after your surgery that you have a contraindicated condition, that might be grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Not all complications are normal
Most surgeries come with common complications, but not all complications are normal. Some people experience serious infections and complications that require immediate corrective surgery. Your recovery should follow a general trajectory toward healing. If that’s not happening and doctors can’t explain why, it’s worth talking to a lawyer.
Informed consent has limits
Before surgery, you were likely asked to sign consent forms acknowledging the risks. However, informed consent doesn’t include accepting mistakes. It only counts for known risks. If a doctor was careless or didn’t follow protocol, they aren’t immune to legal liability. Being rushed or pressured to sign the forms or not being properly informed of the risks often counts as negligence.
Your situation could be more than normal
Surgeries are risky, but not all adverse outcomes are normal. When errors happen because doctors fail to follow basic standards or make preventable mistakes, that can be considered medical malpractice. If you’ve been harmed and your situation feels wrong, it’s worth talking to a lawyer to see if you have a case.
