Liability In New York Medical Malpractice Cases Caused By Surgical Errors

Any surgery has a lot of people involved in the procedure.  There will obviously be surgeons, but also anesthesiologists, an assistant surgeon, nurses, technicians, certified nurse anesthetists, and for some surgeries pulmonologists and cardiologists.  There are a lot of people involved.  When mistakes are made during a surgery, it can be difficult to assess who was responsible for the mistakes because of all the people involved and the fact that you, the witness, are anesthetized.  This means the only witness is the other healthcare staff performing the procedure.

This creates a problem because healthcare providers may point fingers at each other claiming they were not responsible because someone else did the injury.  This can be like a little kid’s pre-school argument, where everyone blames everyone else for the broken lamp but in the end, the owner of the lamp is harmed by the broken possession.

But there are some tools that available to assist victims of surgical medical malpractice.  One of the best doctrines is known as the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur.  This doctrine literally means “the thing speaks for itself.”  When the victim is anesthetized, the defendants are in exclusive control of the instrumentality (i.e., the patient during surgery or the equipment), and the injury does not occur absent negligence, the victim has proven his or her case and automatically wins.  The victim does not need to establish WHO caused the injuries, only that the injuries occurred—the defendants can then fight over liability and who will pay what.

Thus in surgical malpractice cases the best approach is to sue EVERYONE who comes up in the medical records.  Let the defendants all be found liable and let them be stuck with the verdict to fight who is liable.

Thus, in a surgical medical malpractice case the victim should commence an action against the following:

• Surgeon;
• Assistant surgeon;
• Anesthesiologist;
• Nurse anesthetist;
• CNRA team;
• Nurse;
• Technicians;
• Physician assistant;
• Nurse practitioner;
• Surgical group;
• Hospital group; and
• Anyone else appearing in the medical records..

Victims of New York surgical malpractice should contact an experienced New York medical malpractice attorney to learn their victims and how to protect them.