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Medical Procedure Errors

The amount of medical procedure errors that occurs worldwide every year is incredibly high, a lot of which could have been avoided. Whenever a patient enters the emergency room, their lives are put in the hands of somebody else who gets entrusted to perform surgery without any errors, most all of those related to wrong limb operation or wrong area cuts to get rid of tumours.

Medical malpractice or negligence refers to the failure of a medical professional to make use of the prudence, skill, and care needed to prevent injuring a patient or making him fall into sickness. Non-fatal medical errors happen, too, and usually result in very serious injuries like paralysis or various other disabilities that are permanent. Tens of thousands of hospital patients actually die every year as a result of medical negligence or malpractice involving medical errors by health care professionals within the emergency room.

Whenever people sign off on consent forms that allow surgeons to operate on them, they do not usually anticipate medical procedure errors to occur during these procedures. They usually just assume that surgeons have performed the exact same procedure hundreds of times and are therefore experienced and competent enough to actually perform the whole procedure again without any errors. Sadly, this does not seem to always be the case anymore. Medical errors happen to be some of the most shocking errors done in medical malpractice and even include leaving instruments of surgery inside patients post surgery, operating on wrong areas, and even operating on wrong patients.

Some factors that contribute to medical malpractice include failing to take proper medical histories of patients, failing to note every drug allergy of patients, surgeon fatigue, surgical staff miscommunication, inattentiveness, poor patient chart handwriting, and poor pre-operation planning.

Due to the seriousness that comes with medical error consequences, the medical expenses involved in trying to fix these errors happen to be exorbitant. Patients might need to pay for numerous surgeries to fix any problems that have occurred during the initial surgery and nerve or organ damage might have occurred, as well as scarring and infection. The victim's emotional toll also happens to be profound and several of them never even get to fully recover from the grave errors that the surgeon has committed.

The amount of wrong area surgery, which is probably the most horrible medical error of all, is actually rising. A few years ago, health care facilities have reported almost a hundred operations that involved wrong body sides or parts. The exact amount might be higher still since a lot of hospitals do not admit such errors in public.

Several efforts have been made to fix this ever-growing problem related to medical procedure errors, though. Last-minute meetings, for example, are encouraged within surgical teams to ensure that the proper site gets prepared and to ensure that the patient being prepared is actually the right one, as well. Surgeons in several countries also get orders to mark black X's on proper surgery areas to avoid surgeries on wrong areas. Several surgeons, however, are not fond of such last-minute meetings and do not make use of black X's to mark areas of surgery because they feel like they aren't capable of making these grave errors. Taking several seconds to make such last-minute checks, however, could easily save lives, as well as save surgeons tons of money by avoiding lawsuits of medical malpractice.


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