Medical Error Lawyers in Philadelphia

Why Do Medical Errors Occur?

There are predictable reasons for medical errors, no matter how they manifest. Many boil down to the following avoidable elements:

• Poor communication between different doctors and departments: A failure to communicate effectively can result in errors ranging from wrong site surgeries to prescription errors.
• Inadequate training: Basic incompetence is at the root of many botched surgeries and misdiagnoses.
• Fatigue: As a default, doctors and nurses are overworked. When a surgeon at the end of a long shift is asked to complete an emergency procedure, they may be more likely to make mistakes.
• Drugs and alcohol: Some doctors and nurses turn to drugs and alcohol to cope with the stress they face. And it’s a short way from an off-hours dependence on drugs and alcohol to letting addiction interfere with work duties.
• Neglect: Many medical errors are the result of neglect. When a surgical team fails to confirm that they are embarking on the correct procedure on the correct patient — along with a host of additional pre-op considerations — they set themselves up for the possibility of surgical error. When a doctor doesn’t follow the standard of care for monitoring a pregnancy, they are readying conditions for the possibility of a birth injury.

Surgical Errors

Surgical errors are more common than people would like to think — and the most devastating ones are among the most prevalent.

Two unique factors contribute to these mostly avoidable situations. Patients ascribe great importance to their surgeries — and often a not insignificant amount of anxiety — and naturally assume that their overworked surgeons share this feeling of importance, and don’t need to be reminded of the right leg to operate on, for example. Another contributing factor to these tragedies is that patients are often unconscious for their procedures.

In addition to wrong site surgeries, many other errors can rear their heads in these high-pressure situations:

• Accidental damage to surrounding organs, muscles, ligaments, tissue and nerves
• Anesthesia errors related to allergies
• Avoidable infection
• Improper incisions
• Poorly sterilized equipment
• Premature patient discharge
• Prolonged surgery
• Surgical tools left in the patient’s body
• Wrong procedures performed on patients

Diagnostic Errors

In a 2009 article, the Journal of the American Medical Association put the number of patient deaths due to misdiagnosis at 40,000–80,000 per year. These diagnostic errors include:

• Failure to recognize and treat complications: A failure to adjust a treatment plan to consider new developments in a condition can radically hurt a patient’s chances of recovery or stabilization.
• Misdiagnosis: A misdiagnosis can be worse than no diagnosis at all, as a patient may feel like their condition is under control when it isn’t.
• Missed or delayed diagnosis: When a doctor ignores risk factors and symptoms, they may be contributing to a worsened prognosis.