Questions About Your Doctor Making An Error During A Medical Procedure

Did you recently have a surgery performed and a doctor ended up making an error? This means that the mistake that they made may have been preventable and violated your standard of care, while also resulting in an injury or pain. If this describes your situation, you likely have questions about if you have a medical malpractice case.

What Evidence Should You Look At?

Since you will likely be sedated during the procedure, you may be wondering how to gather evidence that an error happened. Most patients will not realize that an error happened until after the surgery is over and the recovery process does not go as well. You may be experiencing more pain or discomfort that requires you to revisit what happened during the surgery. If it is determined that another surgery is needed to fix a problem, then you may have a valid case on your hands. 

In other situations, the hospital may notify you about what happened during the surgery. There are guidelines that hospitals must follow for notifying a patient of a mistake, and it is entirely possible that you will be told. For example, if you experienced pain during the procedure, your anesthesiologist may report to you that the machine wasn't delivering the proper dosage of medication to you. That error ended up causing you to experience a lot of pain during the procedure that you would not have otherwise had to experience due to an error on the part of the anesthesiologist. 

How Do You Prove Medical Malpractice? 

Your lawyer will help investigate the surgery and request any surgical notes. These may list the surgical error that was made during the procedure and be solid evidence that medical malpractice occurred. You can also receive a consultation from a similar type of doctor to look at your operation and medical records then make an observation about what they think happened and if an error occurred. Experiencing a preventable mistake does not always mean that you can file a medical malpractice lawsuit, so an expert witness can help prove if your standard of care was violated.

When Can You File A Medical Malpractice Lawsuit?

What makes a medical malpractice case difficult is the statute of limitations where the case must be filed by the deadline. If your condition gets worse over time and you miss the deadline, it is possible that you may be too late and unable to file a lawsuit. Make sure you become familiar with the laws in your state and how much time you have to file a lawsuit. 

If you have questions, contact a medical malpractice case advisor for help.


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