Malpractice in Operating Room

Operations always carry risks, and patients should give informed consent about those risks. Even when you do, however, you likely expect that your surgeon, nurses, or staff carrying out the operation will adhere to accepted standards and practices. If hospital staff or doctors failed to abide by the professional standard of care, and you were injured, you may have grounds to sue for malpractice in the operating room. You should call the seasoned Syracuse surgical malpractice lawyers of DeFrancisco & Falgiatano, LLP. We represent clients on a contingency fee basis, which means we won’t recover our fees unless we recover a settlement or award for you.

Operating room malpractice can include perforation of internal organs, ureteral injuries, loss of range of motion, loss of sensation, and even death. If you were harmed because of any of the following, you may have been the victim of actionable surgical malpractice. This is a non-exhaustive list, which is why it’s crucial to call our Syracuse lawyers about your unique situation:

• A provider failed to diagnose a dangerous medical condition that came up before, during or after surgery.
• A provider left instruments in your body following surgery.
• A provider operated on an incorrect limb, organ, or other part of your body.
• A provider damaged your organs in the course of surgery.
• A provider made a mistake during a hectic emergency surgery or a failed to address a surgical error or complication in a timely way or at all.
• An anesthesiologist made an error in providing anesthesia during surgery.
• A provider failed to monitor you for issues such as infection or internal bleeding after surgery.

Certain errors in the operating room are called never events. For example, if your surgeon operated on your right arm instead of your left arm, the error is clear. But surgery and procedures set up for the operating room are complex, and in many cases, a provider’s liability is not so obvious.

To determine whether you have a viable claim, our attorneys would need to retain an expert even before filing your case to determine whether your health care provider departed from the professional standard of care in the operating room and whether that departure caused your injuries. The professional standard of care, which is the accepted standards of practice when faced with a similar patient or circumstance, depends on the geographic region and specialty of the defendant.

When our seasoned lawyers establish a defendant’s liability, we are able to recover both economic and noneconomic damages on behalf of our client, an injured patient. Economic damages that may be suffered as the result of operating malpractice include hospitalization, further surgeries, lost income, medication, and rehabilitation. We may be able to also recover noneconomic damages such as mental anguish, loss of consortium, disability, scarring, and pain and suffering.

Sometimes mistakes made in concert in the operating room cause serious injuries. For example, a surgeon may fail to take a sponge out of an open cavity during surgery, while a nurse may fail to do a last check of all cavities, and their combined negligence can result in harm to a patient. It may be appropriate to bring all potentially responsible parties into the lawsuit and conduct discovery to determine their varying degrees of fault. New York follows the rule of joint and several liability with regard to economic damages like lost wages and medical bills.

If you suffered malpractice in the operating room, the experienced Syracuse attorneys of DeFrancisco & Falgiatano Personal Injury Attorneys may be able to help you recover damages. We also represent patients injured in operating rooms around Upstate New York, including patients in Rochester, Ithaca, Utica, Lyons, Elmira, Norwich, Cortland, Delhi, Herkimer, Watertown, Lowville, Canandaigua, Oneida, Wampsville, Oswego, Cooperstown, Binghamton, Auburn, and all of Upstate New York. Call us at 833-200-2000 or complete our online form for a free consultation. Understanding how difficult it is to get back on your feet after going through surgical malpractice or other harmful malpractice, we represent clients on a contingency fee basis.