How Do Surgical Errors Affect a Legal Claim?
If you were injured by a medical professional or a medical facility’s negligence, it can substantiate a medical malpractice claim in New Jersey. In your claim, you can seek compensation for your physical, financial, and emotional losses, which can be immense. Reach out to an experienced surgical error injury attorney at Ginsberg & O’Connor today.
When Surgical Errors Qualify as Medical Malpractice
When you need surgical care, you are at your most vulnerable, and you look to your medical providers to safeguard your well-being. While anyone, including every member of a surgical team, can make a mistake, these mistakes sometimes cross the line into medical malpractice, which can prove devastating.
To prove medical malpractice in New Jersey, you will need to demonstrate that each of the following is true:
- The medical professional in question breached the duty of care they owed you. This means they failed to employ the standard of care their professional peers would have under similar circumstances.
- Their breached standard of care was the direct cause of your injuries.
- You suffered legal damages as a direct result. These include your subsequent and related medical costs, any lost income, and your physical and emotional pain and suffering.
Common Forms of Surgical Errors
Every medical malpractice claim involving surgical error is unique to the specific circumstances. Many of these claims, however, fall into basic categories.
Errors that Relate to Anesthesia
Anesthesia plays a primary role in virtually every surgical procedure. When anesthesia errors are made, however, they can lead to serious problems for the patient. These can range from the dangerous complications that excessive anesthesia often causes to the immense pain during surgery that inadequate anesthesia can lead to.
Errors that Relate to Postoperative Care
Inadequate postoperative care leaves surgical patients vulnerable to dangerous infections. This form of error includes the failure to promptly detect and effectively treat infections, which can lead to life-threatening complications.
Errors that Cause Nerve Damage
Surgeons who do not take all the precautions necessary to avoid causing nerve damage near the surgical site put their patients at extreme risk. Related complications range from chronic pain to loss of sensation or even paralysis.
Never Events
There are also surgical errors that are so dangerous and preventable that they should never happen and are, therefore, called never events. They include all the following:
- Operating on the wrong person
- Operating on the wrong side of the patient’s body
- Performing the wrong surgery on a patient
- Leaving a surgical instrument inside a patient’s body
Our Experienced Surgical Error Injury Lawyers Can Help
The formidable Cherry Hill surgical error attorneys at Ginsberg & O’Connor have an impressive track record of guiding even the most challenging claims toward favorable resolutions, and we are on your side. Learn more about everything we can do to help by contacting us online or by calling our firm at 856-727-1991 today.