Surgeries need to be conducted by professionals with utmost precision and care. However, surgeons’ negligence can lead to grave results. This is why surgical errors are considered medical malpractice, as they violate the standard of care. Many of these mistakes could have been avoided easily if the surgeon had followed their training or a safety checklist in the first place. Today, we are going to take a look at some of the most common and preventable errors in the operating room:

Wrong Medicine Administering

This is one of the most common forms of surgical errors. Doctors often prescribe medicine and administer anesthesia either during surgery or to facilitate post-surgery recovery. Giving the wrong medication or the right ones in incorrect doses can cause catastrophic results. The surgical teams must carefully review a patient’s medical records before determining the medicine to offer them.

Operating At The Wrong Place

If a patient has been admitted for the removal of a tumor from his left leg but the surgeon mistakenly operates on his right leg, this accounts for wrong-site surgery and can cause irreparable damage to the area that has been mistakenly operated on. Such mistakes usually occur when the surgeons are not briefed before the procedure. It is the duty of the hospital staff, nurses, and even the surgeon to double-check the procedures to prevent such errors from happening.

Equipment Failure

Surgeons often use state-of-the-art equipment to perform surgeries in addition to common ones like knives and scalpels. However, if the equipment fails, the hospital staff, doctors, and administration will be held legally responsible for the incident. Such occurrences can significantly impact the patient’s well-being and even cause death in the worst cases.

Not Following Disinfection & Hygiene Protocols

Surgeons must disinfect their bodies and wash their hands before proceeding with surgery. Doing otherwise can seriously harm the patient by causing infections. There is also a chance of surgical site infections that occur when the hospital staff does not adequately clean the area and medical instruments used during surgery. Such protocols are also applicable to the patient’s body both before and after surgery to prevent the chances of infections.

Conclusion

If you are left injured or have to experience pain or other types of traumas because of these surgical errors, then you can contact a Georgia Medical malpractice lawyer. They will fight for your rightful compensation so that you can keep up with the piling medical bills.