Attorney Representation in Chicago, Illinois Since 1993   

Chicago Medical Malpractice Attorney  

Surgical Errors

Surgeons · Anesthesiologists · Recovery Room Nurses

In medical parlance, a surgical instrument or other foreign object, like a sponge, left in the patient's body after closing the surgical wound is called "retained" as if the patients themselves purposely kept something as a memento from their surgery. This type of manipulation of the language is one way that the medical profession and the insurance industry is able to shift the focus of medical and surgical errors away from the those who commit medical malpractice. At Cirignani Heller & Harman LLP, because our attorneys have a background in medicine as well as law, we cannot be manipulated in this way, and we don't allow our clients to be manipulated either.

Integrity · Compassion · Tenacity

Other surgical errors include:

1.  Failure to recognize and treat surgical complications

Surgeons may fail to recognize that the operative site has become infected or that the procedure has caused substantial bleeding or that they put a hole or a cut where one doesn't belong.

2.  Failure to Operate

Sometimes surgery is the only effective treatment yet it is either not done or not done quickly enough, like when a nurse doesn't tell a surgeon of an important change in a patient's condition or when a surgeon can't be found or fails to show up when called.

3.  Unnecessary Surgery

There are cases where surgery is performed without any reasonable justification. Examples include: removal of a colon when no test has confirmed the need, or phalloplastys (penile enlargement procedures) which are medically useless surgeries in normal men.

4.  Misidentified Patients And Parts

Catastrophic errors have been made when patients have been misidentified or when someone has confused the right or the left side of a patient's body. Examples: operating on wrong patient, removing wrong kidney (take normal and leave cancerous kidney), transfusing mismatched blood, or implanting an incompatible organ.

If you have been affected by medical malpractice involving surgery error or any other medical negligence, we invite you to contact our office to discuss the circumstances of your case.

Read more about birth injuries at our Cerebral Palsy and Erb's Palsy practice area pages.

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