Key Takeaways
- Surgical malpractice may occur when a surgeon, anesthesiologist, nurse, hospital, or other healthcare provider departs from the applicable standard of care and causes you harm.
- Common surgical errors include wrong-site surgery, performing the wrong procedure, damaging organs or blood vessels, leaving foreign objects inside the body, anesthesia mistakes, and improper use of surgical equipment.
- Postoperative negligence can also lead to a malpractice claim when providers fail to recognize or treat internal bleeding, infection, bowel perforation, blood clots, respiratory distress, or other dangerous complications.
- Surgical errors can cause organ damage, nerve injuries, severe infection, uncontrolled bleeding, permanent disability, the need for additional surgery, and death.
- Depending on how the error occurred, responsibility may extend to surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, surgical technicians, hospitals, surgical centers, and medical practices.
- Proving surgical malpractice requires evidence that the provider failed to meet the applicable standard of care and that the failure caused your injury. Operative reports, imaging, anesthesia records, nursing notes, laboratory results, and other medical records can help establish what happened.
When done correctly, surgery can either save your life or improve its quality. For example, a successful knee operation can address mobility issues and make it possible to move freely around without constant pain. But when errors happen during your procedure, the outcome can be detrimental and even life-threatening.
A malpractice claim may arise when a surgeon, anesthesiologist, nurse, hospital, or other healthcare provider departs from the applicable standard of care and that failure causes harm. Common examples include:
- Operating on the wrong body part
- Leaving an object inside a patient
- Administering anesthesia improperly
- Missing dangerous postoperative complications
At The Champion Firm, Personal Injury Attorneys, P.C., we represent Georgia patients and families in medical malpractice claims involving surgical injuries and deaths. In this guide, we outline common surgical errors resulting in med mal lawsuits and how to recognize the signs that you may have a claim.
What Makes a Surgical Error Medical Malpractice?
A surgical complication can happen even when you receive appropriate treatment. To support a medical malpractice claim, there must be evidence that a healthcare provider departed from the applicable standard of care and that this departure caused your injury. In practical terms, the question is whether another qualified provider in the same field would have acted differently under similar conditions.
A surgical malpractice claim usually requires proof of four elements:
- Duty of Care: A doctor, nurse, hospital, or other healthcare provider had a professional duty to treat you according to accepted medical standards.
- Breach of the Standard of Care: The provider failed to meet the standard expected from a reasonably competent healthcare professional in the same field.
- Causation: The provider’s error caused or contributed to your injury. It isn’t enough to show that a mistake occurred if that mistake didn’t cause harm.
- Damages: You suffered losses because of the injury, such as additional medical treatment, lost income, pain, disability, or reduced ability to perform daily activities.
Surgical malpractice cases usually depend heavily on evidence like:
- Medical records
- Operative reports
- Imaging
- Anesthesia records
- Nursing notes
- Testimony from qualified medical professionals
These materials can show what happened during the operation, what warning signs appeared afterward, and how the treatment may have deviated from accepted medical standards. They can also help distinguish a known surgical risk from an injury caused by negligence.
Now let’s take a look at the more common surgical errors and their causes.
1. Wrong-Site Surgery
As its name indicates, wrong-site surgery happens when a surgeon operates on the wrong part of the body. Examples include:
- Operating on the wrong knee
- Removing the wrong kidney
- Amputating the wrong limb
- Performing spinal surgery at the wrong vertebral level
These errors can leave you with injuries from an unnecessary procedure while the original medical problem remains untreated.
Wrong-site surgery can result from failures that happen before the procedure even begins. Common causes include:
- Incorrect or incomplete surgical site marking
- Failure to verify the patient’s identity and planned procedure
- Failure to review imaging before surgery
- Communication errors between surgeons, nurses, and operating room staff
- Incorrect information in medical records or scheduling documents
- Failure to conduct a proper preoperative surgical timeout
Hospitals and surgical teams use verification procedures to reduce the risk of this type of error. When those safeguards aren’t followed, the consequences can be severe as a wrong-site procedure may need corrective surgery, extend recovery time, cause permanent disability, or create further medical complications.
2. Performing the Wrong Surgical Procedure
A wrong-procedure error happens when a patient receives a different operation from the one that was planned or authorized. This can happen even when the surgeon operates on the correct patient and body part. For example, they may remove tissue that wasn’t supposed to be removed or perform a different procedure from the one listed in the surgical plan.
Common causes include:
- Incorrect information on consent forms
- Scheduling mistakes
- Errors in the patient’s chart
- Miscommunication between the surgeon and operating room staff
- Failure to confirm the planned procedure before surgery
- Confusion between similar procedures
These mistakes can cause permanent injury and may leave the original medical condition untreated. Medical records, consent forms, operative notes, and scheduling documents can help show what procedure was authorized, what was planned, and what was actually performed.
3. Damage to Organs, Blood Vessels, Nerves, or Other Tissue
Many surgical procedures require doctors to work close to blood vessels, nerves, organs, ducts, and other sensitive tissue. Some injuries are recognized risks of surgery, but others may result from poor technique, failure to identify anatomical landmarks, improper instrument use, or failure to respond after damage occurs. Examples include:
- Perforating the bowel during abdominal surgery
- Severing the bile duct during gallbladder surgery
- Cutting or damaging a major blood vessel
- Injuring a nerve and causing weakness, numbness, or paralysis
- Damaging the bladder or ureter during pelvic surgery
- Injuring nearby organs during laparoscopic procedures
Malpractice may also happen when an injury happens during surgery but the medical team fails to recognize it. A patient who develops severe abdominal pain or other warning signs after surgery may need immediate testing or further treatment. If those signs are ignored or treatment is delayed, an injury that could have been corrected may become life-threatening.
4. Retained Surgical Instruments, Sponges, and Other Foreign Objects
When a sponge, needle, clamp, gauze pad, or instrument fragment is left inside a patient, it can remain undetected until symptoms appear days, months, or even years later. These incidents may result from inaccurate surgical counts, communication failures, emergency conditions, or failure to investigate a discrepancy before closing the incision.
Common retained surgical items include:
- Surgical sponges
- Gauze
- Needles
- Clamps
- Instrument fragments
A retained object can cause infection, internal bleeding, abscesses, bowel obstruction, tissue damage, chronic pain, or injury to nearby organs. Some patients need another operation to remove the item and repair the resulting damage. In severe cases, a retained object can lead to sepsis, organ failure, or death.
Note: Under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-72, an action involving a foreign object left in the body must be filed within one year after the negligent or wrongful act or omission is discovered. The statute excludes chemical compounds, fixation devices, and prosthetic aids or devices from its definition of a foreign object.
5. Anesthesia Errors
Mistakes involving anesthetic drugs, airway management, or patient monitoring can cause severe injury. These errors can happen before surgery begins, during the operation, or while the patient is recovering. An anesthesia provider must review the patient’s medical history, choose appropriate medications and dosages, maintain the airway, and monitor vital signs throughout the procedure, but it doesn’t always happen.
Examples of anesthesia errors include:
- Administering too much anesthetic
- Administering too little anesthetic
- Giving the wrong medication
- Failing to account for allergies or drug interactions
- Improper intubation
- Failing to maintain a patient’s airway
- Failing to monitor oxygen levels, blood pressure, heart rate, or other vital signs
- Delaying treatment after signs of respiratory or cardiovascular distress appear
The consequences can be severe. A patient who receives too much anesthesia may experience dangerously low blood pressure, respiratory depression, cardiac arrest, or brain injury caused by inadequate oxygen. Errors involving intubation or airway management can also lead to aspiration, oxygen deprivation, damage to the teeth or throat, and other injuries.
6. Preventable Surgical-Site Infections
Infections are a known risk of surgery, but some develop because sterile procedures weren’t followed or signs of infection weren’t treated promptly. The key issue in a malpractice claim is whether the medical team took appropriate steps to prevent infection and responded properly once symptoms appeared.
Potential causes of preventable surgical-site infections include:
- Using improperly sterilized instruments
- Failing to follow sterile technique in the operating room
- Contaminating the surgical field
- Improper wound care after surgery
- Failing to administer antibiotics when medically indicated
- Delaying testing or treatment after signs of infection appear
Symptoms can include increasing pain, redness, swelling, drainage, fever, chills, or a wound that isn’t healing properly. If the infection spreads, a patient may develop an abscess, sepsis, tissue damage, organ failure, or other serious complications. Treatment may require intravenous antibiotics, drainage procedures, additional surgery, or a longer hospital stay.
7. Using the Wrong Surgical Equipment or Using Equipment Improperly
Errors can happen when a provider selects the wrong device, uses equipment incorrectly, or continues with a procedure after a malfunction becomes apparent. These mistakes can cause burns, internal injuries, uncontrolled bleeding, tissue damage, or the need for corrective surgery.
Examples include:
- Using an instrument that isn’t appropriate for the procedure
- Placing surgical equipment incorrectly
- Applying excessive force with a surgical device
- Misusing electrosurgical or cautery equipment
- Continuing to use a device after signs of malfunction
- Failing to check equipment before surgery
- Using damaged or improperly maintained equipment
Determining responsibility depends on why the equipment caused your injuries. A claim may involve negligence by the surgeon or surgical team, failures by the hospital to maintain equipment, or a defective medical device.
8. Failure to Control Bleeding
Some blood loss is expected during surgery, but uncontrolled bleeding can become a medical emergency. Surgeons and operating room staff must monitor blood loss, identify its source, and respond before the patient develops severe complications. A malpractice claim may arise when a provider causes avoidable vascular damage, fails to recognize active bleeding, or delays treatment after signs of hemorrhage appear.
Examples include:
- Cutting or damaging a major artery or vein
- Failing to identify the source of internal bleeding
- Closing the surgical site before bleeding has been controlled
- Delaying a blood transfusion when one is medically necessary
- Failing to monitor blood pressure, heart rate, hemoglobin, or other indicators of blood loss
- Missing signs of postoperative internal bleeding
Severe blood loss can reduce the amount of oxygen reaching the brain and other organs. This can lead to hemorrhagic shock, kidney injury, cardiac arrest, brain damage, emergency reoperation, or death. Postoperative bleeding can also be difficult to detect when it occurs internally, which makes close monitoring especially important after surgery.
9. Failure to Recognize and Treat Surgical Complications
Patients need appropriate postoperative monitoring so problems such as internal bleeding, infection, organ damage, blood clots, or respiratory distress can be identified before they cause further harm. A malpractice claim may arise when providers miss symptoms, delay testing, or fail to begin appropriate treatment.
Examples include:
- Failing to recognize signs of internal bleeding
- Missing symptoms of a bowel perforation
- Ignoring signs of sepsis
- Failing to investigate severe or worsening abdominal pain
- Delaying imaging or laboratory testing
- Failing to recognize respiratory distress
- Missing signs of a postoperative blood clot
- Delaying corrective surgery after a complication is identified
Postoperative warning signs can include fever, rapid heart rate, falling blood pressure, severe pain, abdominal swelling, shortness of breath, confusion, low oxygen levels, or abnormal laboratory results. These findings may indicate that a patient needs further testing or immediate treatment. Delays can allow infection, bleeding, or organ damage to progress to sepsis, shock, permanent disability, or death.
Who May Be Liable for a Surgical Error?
Responsibility for a surgical error may extend beyond the surgeon who performed the procedure. Depending on how the injury happened, several healthcare providers or medical organizations may share responsibility for the harm you suffered. Potentially liable parties may include:
- Surgeons: A surgeon may be responsible for errors involving surgical technique, damage to surrounding tissue, failure to control bleeding, or failure to recognize an injury during the procedure.
- Assistant Surgeons: An assistant surgeon may be liable if their own negligent actions contributed to the injury.
- Anesthesiologists: An anesthesiologist may be responsible for medication errors, airway problems, inadequate monitoring, or delayed treatment of anesthesia complications.
- Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists: A CRNA may share responsibility when negligent anesthesia care contributes to the patient’s injury.
- Nurses: Nurses may be liable for medication errors, improper monitoring, inaccurate surgical counts, or failure to report dangerous postoperative changes.
- Surgical Technicians: A technician may contribute to an injury by mishandling equipment, failing to maintain the sterile field, or making errors during instrument counts.
- Hospitals: A hospital may face liability for negligent staffing, unsafe policies, inadequate supervision, poor equipment maintenance, or the conduct of employees acting within the scope of their employment.
- Surgical Centers: An ambulatory surgical facility may be responsible for unsafe procedures, staffing failures, equipment problems, or other facility-level errors.
- Medical Practices or Physician Groups: A physician group may share liability depending on the employment relationship and the conduct of the providers involved.
Some cases involve several failures rather than one isolated mistake. For example, a surgeon may damage an organ during the procedure, while hospital staff later fail to recognize signs of internal bleeding or infection. Each act must be evaluated separately to determine who may be legally responsible for the resulting harm.
How Do You Prove a Surgical Malpractice Claim?
Proving surgical malpractice involves more than showing that something went wrong during or after an operation. You need evidence that a healthcare provider failed to meet the applicable standard of care and that this failure caused your injury. Depending on what happened, this evidence may include:
- Operative reports
- Preoperative imaging
- Anesthesia records
- Nursing notes
- Medication records
- Surgical count sheets
- Laboratory results
- Postoperative imaging
- Pathology reports
- Hospital discharge records
- Follow-up treatment records
These records can help establish what procedure was planned, what happened during surgery, when complications appeared, and how the medical team responded. They may also show changes in vital signs, abnormal test results, or treatment delays that support the claim.
Note: Georgia law imposes an expert affidavit requirement in many professional malpractice cases. Under O.C.G.A. § 9-11-9.1, a medical malpractice complaint generally must include an affidavit from a qualified expert identifying at least one negligent act or omission and the factual basis for that opinion. Because this requirement applies at the filing stage, medical review usually needs to occur before the lawsuit is filed.
Get a Free Consultation From a Georgia Medical Malpractice Attorney
A serious surgical injury may result from different causes. The question is whether the injury resulted from a recognized surgical risk or from care that fell below the applicable medical standard. Medical records and testimony from qualified medical professionals can help answer that question.
At The Champion Firm, Personal Injury Attorneys, P.C., we represent Georgia patients and families in surgical malpractice cases involving severe injury and death. We can review the treatment you received, identify the providers responsible for your care, and determine if you have grounds to pursue compensation. For more information or to schedule a free consultation with a Georgia medical malpractice lawyer, call 404-637-1709. Hablamos Español.
