All surgeries have risk. Doctors who perform a surgical procedure however need to be careful not to cause harm beyond the generally acceptable risks. One type of harm that can occur arises when a surgeon inadvertently perforates an organ such as the bladder. This error can be compounded if the surgeon fails to detect the perforations during the surgery and fails to recognize symptoms indicative of a complication following the surgery. When this happens and the complication is left untreated the consequences can be deadly. In such circumstances the family of the patient may be able to succeed in a medical malpractice lawsuit against doctor. For example, consider the following case.
In this case a woman underwent laparoscopic and Domino surgery which was expected to be quick and routine. As a result the doctor who performed the surgery did not have to catheterize the woman or have her void prior to the surgery. As a result of the woman's bladder was enlarged. The surgery which was performed not at a hospital but rather at a surgical center in the same building as the doctors office, quickly became more complicated. The doctor discovered a large fibroid in her uterus which she attempted to remove during the surgery. He ended up dropping the fibroid into the woman's peritoneal cavity and in his attempts to locate it again and remove it he ended up twice perforating her enlarged bladder.
The doctor did not realize that he had perforated her bladder during the surgery. Urine began to leak out of her bladder. Without having checked the doctor also did not know that the woman was suffering from a urinary tract infection. This meant that the urine leaking out was affected. The woman began to show signs of the complication even while she was in the recovery room. She experienced significant pain and was not able to avoid. The site of the surgery began to have significant amounts of drainage that included your. Again the doctor did not realize that this was happening when he checked on her and sent her home later that day.
By the following morning with worsening symptoms the woman called the doctor's office for a device of what to do. She was told that she needed to go to the ER. The doctors at the hospital performed emergency surgery and repaired the perforations to her bladder. During the surgery however it became clear that a massive infection had sent in by that point. She not only had a wound infection but it had advanced to peritonitis and sepsis.
After two months of undergoing multiple surgeries in an attempt to save her life without being able to completely remove the infection she died. She was only 40 years old. She had been married for only three years and had undergone the original surgery in an effort to evaluate the source of her inability to have children during that time. Her husband pursued a lawsuit against the doctor who performed the original surgery. The law firm that represented her husband reported that the case was mediated and ultimately settled in the amount of $1.9 million.
Understanding the Risk of Surgical Errors What Does Medical Malpractice Law Say About Your Case? Wrong Patient Surgery Safety of Gastric Banding Weight-Loss Surgery in Question
0 comments:
Post a Comment