Michigan Surgical Error Lawyer

Michigan’s many medical facilities provide top-quality care and serve thousands of patients each year. Patients expect doctors and medical staff to be competent and effective, especially when facing the prospect of major surgery.

Many medical professionals work together to perform major surgery, including surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, and other staff. Each of these individuals owes a duty of care to the patient to act professionally and competently and to keep the patient safe. The consequences of a surgical mistake or negligent error can be serious — even fatal.

Patient Safety Is Everyone’s Responsibility

Although risk is always involved when a patient undergoes surgery, many adverse outcomes result from professional negligence, carelessness, or incompetence.

Sometimes, individuals make mistakes, such as a surgeon making an improper incision or failing to properly place an implanted device. Many errors are related to anesthesia, including administering too much or too little, failing to administer the correct dosage at the proper time, and keeping a patient under anesthesia for too long.

Mistakes can involve individuals failing to follow protocol or not taking steps to prevent harm. Egregious examples like wrong-site, wrong-person, or wrong-procedure errors and more common instances of foreign objects left inside a patient demonstrate these types of failures. Injuries can also arise from the surgical team’s failure to observe a dangerous condition, such as a patient being improperly or unsafely positioned during a procedure.

Systemic problems, such as inadequate staffing, insufficient recovery monitoring, and improper safety protocols, can also lead to adverse outcomes in surgical patients. A hospital’s failure to properly ensure a patient receives appropriate supervision, monitoring, care, and oversight can have devastating effects.

Protecting Patients Before, During, and After Surgery

Medical staff and care facilities are responsible for providing patients with professional, competent pre-operative, surgical, and post-operative recovery care. This includes diagnosing a patient’s condition, ordering and interpreting lab and diagnostic tests, and prescribing medication.

Performing the surgery successfully is just one step; a patient’s care team is responsible for their entire journey. Mistakes in administering medication, failing to check for allergies or contraindications, failing to properly monitor a patient’s recovery, and other negligent acts can cause serious harm to a patient.

In addition, hospitals, doctors, and other staff must take steps to ensure their facilities and tools are safe, clean, and in good working order. Tools and technology must be checked regularly and maintained appropriately. Cleanliness, sterilization, sanitation, and hygiene must be carefully maintained, and appropriate personal protective gear must always be used. Failure to meet these standards could result in avoidable infections and other complications.

Medical Malpractice in the Operating Room Infographic

Contact a Detroit Surgical Error Attorney Today

Medical personnel and facilities must be held to the highest professional standards. They should be held accountable when errors happen due to negligence, carelessness, or incompetence.

Hospitals, healthcare providers, and insurers aggressively defend surgical malpractice claims, which can make it very difficult for an injured patient to prevail. You need a zealous advocate with decades of experience and attorneys ready to take on complex and complicated cases. As pioneers of medical negligence litigation, our attorneys understand what it takes to hold medical staff accountable for their harmful actions or inaction.

Sommers Schwartz has the medical experts and resources to thoroughly and accurately evaluate your claim and the seasoned legal team to litigate your case and secure the compensation you deserve. Our experienced attorneys handle all types of medical malpractice cases in Detroit, Michigan, and across the nation.