Medical Malpractice Attorneys

1. Surgical Errors

A sedated patient undergoing surgery is at his or her most vulnerable state. When you have a surgical procedure performed, you have the expectation to be treated with the utmost care and to recover from your surgery without complications. While every surgery may carry with it inherent risks, surgical malpractice is not an acceptable risk. Contrary to what insurance companies would like you to believe, there are standards in surgery that are there to protect the patients and those standards must be adhered to by medical professionals.

Typically, surgical errors resulting in Oklahoma medical malpractice cases happen when your health care professional fails to provide you with the appropriate standard of care and makes errors prior to, during, or after your surgery. A surgical error is a type of medical malpractice that can have terrible, even deadly, results. Surgical errors can include:

• Wrong incisions
• Wrong site surgery
• Equipment left inside the body
• Anesthesia complications
• Nerve damage
• Prolonged surgery
• Organ damage
• Non-sterile equipment

2. Doctor Impairment Injuries

Sadly there are situations where medical professionals have attempted to care for patients while impaired by alcohol, drugs or prescription drugs. The combination of doctor impairment and medical treatment is unjustifiable and usually has disastrous results for the patient. Our Oklahoma medical malpractice lawyers are experienced in handling these claims and will fight for accountability with the medical professionals and their employers.

3. Emergency Room Errors

Oklahoma emergency room doctors generally provide excellent care but there are those occasions where medical errors occur. These errors are preventable and are usually the result of the chronic staff shortages that plague hospital emergency rooms. However, staff shortages are not an excuse for neglect. The hospital emergency room is not a place for mistakes, and when emergency room doctors or nurses drop the ball, the results can be catastrophic.

Some of the most common types of emergency room errors are:

• failure to fully evaluate or treat a patient’s condition
• late or wrong diagnosis
• faulty laboratory tests
• contaminated blood transfusions
• prescribing incorrect medication or incorrect dosage
• and failure to monitor a patient.

4. Diagnosis Errors

A study published in the October 2006 edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine concludes that missed or delayed diagnoses may comprise nearly 60% of all medical malpractice claims. The study showed that errors in diagnosis occur not only in hospitals, but in other medical settings as well. If you or a loved one has fallen prey to a diagnosis error, you understand the grave and serious impact these errors have on you or your loved ones. These errors often lead to death or permanent harm to a patient who could have recovered but for the diagnosis error.

There are several types of diagnosis errors that may occur. Diagnosis errors include:

• delayed diagnosis,
• misdiagnosis,
• and complete failure to diagnose a medical condition.

5. Anesthesia Error

Complications caused by anesthesia are among the normal risks of surgery, but anesthesia error is preventable and, like surgical error, is not an acceptable risk. When anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists are negligent, the consequences are usually serious and sometimes deadly. Anesthesiologists play an important role in making sure the patient is medically stable and fit for non-emergency surgery and stable throughout emergency surgery. Anesthesia error can lead to:

• overdose
• allergic reaction
• pain and awareness during surgery
• brain injury,
• and much more.

6. Medication Errors

Medication errors are one of the most preventable areas of Oklahoma’s medical malpractice cases. According to studies, drug overdoses or wrong medications cause an estimated 7,000 deaths a year. These mistakes are preventable. Medication errors can leave patients permanently disabled or can have results ranging in severity from minor to fatal. The mistake may be made when the drug is prescribed or in the administration of a medication. Many errors occur when medical professionals simply fail to pay attention to the patients past medical history, administer the wrong dosage or combine toxic and deadly combination of drugs. Poor packaging and labeling, inadequate policies and procedures by medical facilities, and failure to consider a patient’s medical history are just some of the causes of medication errors.