Some types of medical mistakes result in only minor injuries, and a patient can recover quickly or have the error corrected with little trouble. Yet many medical errors are extremely serious and can result in life-threatening and fatal patient injuries. The latter type of medical mistakes are often described as “never events,” meaning that they are entirely preventable and should never happen. To be sure, such “never events” only occur in situations where healthcare providers are clearly negligent. One such type of “never event” is wrong-site surgery. In a wrong-site surgery, a surgeon operates on the wrong part of a patient’s body (such as a left leg instead of a right leg) or performs an operation on the wrong body site altogether. In some cases, wrong-site surgery is also the term used to refer to a surgical procedure performed on the wrong patient.
According to a recent article in WebMD, wrong-site surgery mistakes simply should not be happening under any circumstances, and it is critical for any patient who has been harmed by a wrong-site surgical procedure to seek advice from a New Mexico medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible.
Wrong-Site Surgery Mistakes are Still Happening
As distressing as it is to think about the risk of injury due to a wrong-site surgical mistake, it is extremely important to understand that these types of errors do happen, and they can be devastating. According to the article, two recent, high-profile wrong-site surgery cases involved a botched kidney transplant and a misplaced stent. Indeed, WebMD identifies a recent wrong-site surgery event in July 2021, where a surgeon at University Hospitals in Cleveland “transplanted a kidney into the wrong patient.” Just over a year earlier, the article reports that “an interventional radiologist at Boca Raton Regional Hospital in Florida” faced a medical malpractice lawsuit “for allegedly placing a stent into the wrong kidney of an 80-year-old patient.” In that case, the surgeon is alleged to have removed a stent on the right kidney and to have “replaced” it with a stent in the left kidney.
These are just two examples of recent wrong-site surgery cases that make clear how serious this problem is. Although it is quite rare, the repercussions are often debilitating and fatal.
Doctors Need to Focus on Wrong-Site Surgery to Prevent Mistakes
According to Dr. Mary R. Kwaan, a surgeon at UCLA Medical Center who led a study on wrong-site surgeries, explained that “the problem is that it is so rare that doctors don’t focus on it.” Indeed, Dr. David Meyer underscored, “many surgeons don’t think it can happen to them, so they don’t take extra precautions.” Then, as Meyer clarified, “when they make a wrong-site error, usually the first thing they say is, ‘I never thought this would happen to me.’” Meyer is the executive director for the MedStar Institute for Quality and Safety.
It is also important to highlight that wrong-site surgical errors frequently involve experienced surgeons—these mistakes are not happening due to inexperience. Indeed, surgeons with any level of experience may be liable for a wrong-site surgical mistake.
Contact a Santa Fe Medical Malpractice Lawyer
If you or somebody you love sustained an injury because of a wrong-site surgery, you should seek advice from our Santa Fe medical malpractice attorneys as soon as possible. Contact Slate Stern Law today to learn more.