If you feel that a former surgeon exhibited negligence during a recent operation, then you may have grounds for a lawsuit. You could sue for malpractice. Malpractice refers to any act or any omission that differs from the recognized patterns that are practiced by the medical community.
If you hoped to win your lawsuit, you would have to prove that the act or omission that differed from recognized practices had injured you in some way. Still, it would not have to represent a mistake done by a physician. It could be carried out by any health care professional or any care provider.
Surgical mistakes that serve as examples of negligence
Each of these must demonstrate the characteristics of any act or omission that qualifies as malpractice. Each of them must fall below the acceptable standard for physicians. In addition, each of them must injure the innocent patient.
Any patient that is about to be wheeled into the operating room has been told about the risks that go with every surgical procedure. A complication that results from a known risk cannot be held against the surgeon. Surgeons can be charged with malpractice for any mistakes that would qualify as unexpected errors, but the same errors should not be linked to a known risk.
Questions for which court seeks answers, if a doctor that has performed an operation gets charged with negligence
• Did that same doctor have a full understanding of the patient’s case?
• Had arrangements been made, so that the doctor would have access to all the necessary surgical tools, all of which should have been sterilized?
• Did the doctor in charge of the operation recognize and encourage cooperation from the team at the surgical table?
• Did the surgeon’s actions demonstrate a desire to use a short cut?
• Did the surgeon’s actions show an inability to do a good job of handling a complication?
• Was the operating doctor under the influence of alcohol or drugs while doing the surgery?
Information on the statute of limitations
Obviously, a surgical patient should not be expected to know what the surgeon was doing while that some patient was under anesthesia. Eventually, though, the injury caused by some irregularity should become apparent. That would be the start of the time span set by the statute of limitations.
A decision to sue for malpractice would have to be made before the close of the statute of limitations. Still, a patient with a personal injury lawyer in Richmond Hill might be able to get an extension. The lawyer would have to show that one of two things had happened. Either an object had been left in the patient’s body or an effort had been made to conceal the nature of the accident.