When you undergo a surgical procedure at a hospital or outpatient facility and the surgery is unsuccessful, does this mean that you can be eligible to file a medical malpractice claim? First, it is important to know that I do everything I can to help patients who have been injured as a result of medical negligence. Healthcare providers, including doctors and surgeons, have a duty to provide quality care to patients.
When they make a mistake and a patient gets hurt, I work tirelessly to make sure the patient obtains a fair settlement or verdict for losses. With that in mind, I want to explain why some—but not all—unsuccessful surgeries may give rise to a Cleveland medical malpractice claim.
Surgeries Come with Risks, and Injuries Can Happen Even When a Surgeon is Not Negligent
There are many types of surgeries for which a person can be admitted to a hospital or an outpatient facility. Some surgeries are extremely common, and surgeons perform them on a daily basis. Other procedures are more complicated and much rarer, and surgeons may only perform them occasionally.
It is essential for you to know that surgeries also come with risks, which may not be lessened by a surgeon’s diligence. In other words, even if a surgeon is as careful as possible and takes all available precautions, the surgery may still be unsuccessful, or a patient may sustain an injury. WebMD provides a long list of routine surgeries, as well as other less common surgeries where injuries can occur.
If surgeries come with risks, and some surgeries can be unsuccessful even when a surgeon is doing the best job possible, how can a patient know if her injuries resulted from negligence? To put it another way, how can a patient know if she should file a medical malpractice claim?
Would Another Surgeon Have Done Things Differently?
In an Ohio medical malpractice claim, a plaintiff must provide an “affidavit of merit” under Ohio law. This affidavit essentially makes clear that the injured patient has a valid case. So what makes for a valid medical malpractice case after a surgery does not go as the patient expected?
In short, to prove that a surgeon in Cleveland was negligent, the injured patient will need to be able to show that another surgeon in the Cleveland area who works in the same or a similar field would have acted differently, and that the other surgeon’s behavior likely would have produced different results. If another surgeon in the same field and geographic region does not think your surgeon behaved in a reasonable manner, then you may have a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Most often, surgeries that are unsuccessful give rise to Ohio medical malpractice lawsuits either when the surgeon failed to inform the patient about possible risks, or when the surgeon made a mistake during the procedure.
Some Surgical Injuries are Always Cause for a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit
Some surgical injuries are what we call “never events,” and they are always cause for a medical negligence claim. Some examples include:
- Wrong-site surgery;
- Wrong type of surgery;
- Operating on the wrong patient; or
- Leaving a foreign object in a patient’s body after surgery.
Contact Me to Learn About How I Will Help Get You the Compensation You Deserve
Were you injured after a surgical procedure? I can assess your case to determine whether the procedure involves medical negligence. At that point, we can move forward with a medical malpractice lawsuit. Call my office today at 877.944.4373 to learn more about how I’ll Make Them Pay!®
