Surgical Errors
South Jersey Medical Malpractice Attorney

Individuals about to have surgery are usually well informed by their physicians or hospital about the risks involved. Still, no one thinks it will ever ‘happen to them’. Most people undergoing a surgical procedure have a reasonable expectation that their surgeon and the medical team are competent to perform the surgery without surgical errors. In the state of New Jersey, medical negligence is defined as “the failure to comply with the standard of care to protect a person from harm.”

Unfortunately, although increasingly common, surgical errors continue to be shocking for the victim and their families.

Surgical errors have increased as the numbers of surgeries performed in the U.S. has grown. In New Jersey and across the country, a wide variety of surgical errors can potentially occur, including:

• Giving the patient the wrong drug, or too much or too little of the right drug
• Anesthesia overdoses
• The wrong blood type given to the patient
• Misreading medical charts or medical histories
• Receiving or failing to review medical instructions (leading to surgical procedures performed on the wrong body part)
• Organs unintentionally damaged during surgery on another body part
• Performing surgery without proper medical clearances
• Failure to diagnose post-operative infections
• Failure to treat post-operative infections

Thousands of people in New Jersey and elsewhere face injury each year due to surgical errors that have their roots in medical negligence. Medical negligence, a form of medical malpractice, occurs when a medical professional fails to exercise the necessary care and skill to prevent the patient’s injury or illness.

The bottom line is that surgical errors can occur during any procedure. No patient is immune to becoming a victim, and no doctor can claim they will never make a mistake. If you or your loved one have been victimized by a surgical error, please contact the experienced medical malpractice attorneys at the South Jersey offices of Anapol Schwartz for a free to evaluation of your case and an explanation of your legal rights and options.