There’s no doubt that most major surgeries can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, life after surgery can be even harder if errors occurred during your procedure. If you are the victim of a surgical error in California, it’s understandable to wonder why this mistake happened. Here’s a closer look at a recent report that details the most common causes of surgical errors.
Causes of surgical errors
Coverys, a medical insurer, wanted to find out the most common surgical error causes. After looking over five years of claims, Coverys found that 78% of surgical errors were due to poor performance from the surgeon or someone assisting with the procedure. Besides poor performance from a surgeon, other common claim causes were performing unnecessary surgery, delays in performing procedures and wrong side surgeries.
Another factor that makes this research shocking involves the fates of surgical error victims. Of the data that Coverys checked, 29% of these claims resulted in permanent injuries. Sadly, 9% of these same claims resulted in the death of a patient.
Types of surgeries that led to the most malpractice claims
Digging deeper into its data, Coverys also wanted to know the surgical specialties responsible for the most medical malpractice claims. General surgery was responsible for 22% of all surgical error claims. Besides general surgery, orthopedic surgery and neurosurgery rounded out the top three specialties leading to surgical claims among patients.
If you think that you may have a medical malpractice case, it’s important to start by gathering all documents that are relevant to your case. In many cases, another surgeon of the same specialty should review your case, so it’s important to be examined by another doctor. Having lots of relevant information makes it easier to prove malpractice took place.
