Anesthesia Malpractice Mistakes

Anesthesia is nothing new to the practice of medicine. In fact, using general anesthesia, or at least attempting to do so, goes back thousands of years. General anesthesia is used in many types of procedures and surgeries; it produces a loss of consciousness and prevents the patient from feeling pain and remembering the surgical event. Doctors and lay people often refer to it as going to sleep.

The experienced Kingston medical malpractice attorney knows that without general anesthesia many patients would not be able to reach a cure; the surgery would not be feasible. As such, the use of anesthesia is not going to stop.

It is also known that anesthesia is not fully understood; medical professionals know how to use it and what it does, but no one really understands why it works the way it does. With that said, anesthesiologists spend years in training perfecting their craft. These specialists know more about anesthesia than do other medical professionals.

With that said, mistakes are still made. Not just any mistake, but one that which should never have happened; the kind of mistake that the medical profession expects practitioners to avoid making.

Knowing when an anesthesia mistake was caused by medical malpractice is not easy. Doctors most likely will not tell the patient or the patient’s family that a mistake injured the patient. It may need the keen eye and thorough investigation of an experienced medical malpractice attorney in order for anesthesia mistake victims to discover the real truth.

How and when are mistakes made in regard to the medical use of anesthesia?

In general, the negligence could have been during surgical preparations, during surgery, and or during post surgical care over the patient. Consider the following mistakes that all patients should be aware of.

Inserting anesthesia into muscle tissue as opposed to inserting anesthesia into the patient’s vein:

To some, this may seem implausible; however, it can happen. Delivering anesthesia into a patient’s vein will not produce the anesthetic affect needed to operate on the patient. The tissue around the insertion site will be damaged, the patient will experience pain, and the operation may have to be cancelled or re-performed.

Hypoxic brain injury:

Negligent intubation and or an overdose in anesthesia can deteriorate one’s cognitive abilities, induce a coma, and even cause death.

Too little anesthesia:

A nightmare unlike no other occurs when a surgical patient is put under the surgical knife when not receiving enough anesthesia. The procedure will be conducted while the patient consciously feels every slice at his or her body. The patient will remember the entire event.

Adverse reactions to anesthesia:

Prior to surgery, the patient’s history must be obtained and reviewed by the surgical team. This way, the team will be alerted to possible allergies and complication. Unfortunately, sometimes medical professionals are not as thorough as they need to be.

But what do you think? I would love to hear from you! Leave a comment or I also welcome your phone call on my toll-free cell at 1-866-889-6882 or you can drop me an e-mail at jfisher@fishermalpracticelaw.com. You are always welcome to request my FREE book, The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Malpractice Victims, at the home page of my website at www.protectingpatientrights.com.