One example of medical malpractice is wrong-site surgery. This is a “never event,” or something that should never take place in a medical setting. But it can happen, often because the surgeon was negligent or other medical professionals made a serious mistake.
Exactly what the error looks like can differ from case to case. Below are three of the most common examples of wrong-site surgery to be aware of.
The wrong side of the body
One issue is when the surgery is simply carried out on the wrong side of the body. Someone may be suffering from tennis elbow in their right arm, for example. But they have a surgical procedure carried out, and they wake up to find that the surgeon operated on their left arm.
The wrong procedure
In other cases, the surgeon just performs the wrong procedure entirely. This could be a communication error or a paperwork error. Even if they operated on the right part of the person‘s body, doing the wrong procedure can have drastically negative impacts on that person’s health and well-being.
The wrong patient
Finally, there are also cases where the surgeon performs the correct procedure and operates on the correct side of the body, but they just have the wrong patient. Maybe it is a scheduling mishap or an issue with medical records being mixed up when patients have similar names. The patient is forced to undergo a procedure that they never authorized and did not need.
If any of this has happened to you or a family member, you may be able to seek financial compensation, so be sure you know what legal steps to take.
