A trip to a medical office or emergency room is one that you likely take on faith: You hope that you will leave such a facility in better condition than when you entered it – or at the very least, that you will be given the attention and instruction you need to recover as soon as possible.
However, doctors and healthcare workers are fallible, and mistakes can and do happen. The following are a few of the most common medical errors that may lead to medical malpractice lawsuits.
Mistakes with Anesthesia
Many of the top medical mistakes made in modern facilities are related to anesthesia. One anesthesia error can be the cause of devastating results, including brain damage or death. Such an error may occur before a patient is even given anesthesia (such as when a patient’s full medical history is not evaluated for potential complications). Other anesthesia-related mistakes happen during surgery. These errors may include too high a dose, the use of malfunctioning equipment, and the failure to monitor the vital signs of a patient who is in surgery.
Medication Errors
Countless healthcare mistakes are made due to errors associated with medication. One study revealed that the most common factor in medication-related mistakes was incorrect dosage. This factor alone has led to a high percentage of fatalities (and subsequently to wrongful death lawsuits as well). In certain cases, the wrong drug has been administered with disastrous results.
Surgery on the Wrong Body Part
Although it may be initially difficult to believe, surgery performed in error is not as uncommon as you might hope. This can occur if the information on a patient’s hospital chart is inaccurate or if a surgeon misreads it. It may also occur if surgical draping is inadvertently positioned, so it then conceals the marks that identify the body part intended for surgery.
Surgical Errors
Mistakes made during surgery are also common. The list of such errors may be a long one, but some of the top errors (apart from performing on the wrong body part) include leaving a surgical instrument or other object inside a patient’s body, performing the wrong type of surgery, and making an incision in the wrong place. A surgery may also be performed on the wrong patient.
Infections Contracted in the Hospital
Another common medical mistake is the failure to protect patients sufficiently from infection. In this type of scenario, a patient who is undergoing treatment for a condition may acquire an unrelated infection. This can happen due to negligence on the part of a healthcare worker; in many instances, simply adhering to proper hand hygiene protocol may have prevented a life-threatening infection.
Medical mistakes will always occur to some degree, but numerous mistakes can and should be avoided. Following protocol without fail may be one way to reduce the need for wrongful death lawsuits. Medical malpractice should be a rare occurrence instead of a common problem for patients.