Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
The means of surgery has significantly changed over the past 50 years. There are many innovations and major discoveries which have produced many surgery miracles in human history. Even with these sophistications and major improvements, there are still instances where technology fails patients’ hope. What is more disappointing is the fact that these failures are more of a human error and not by the inadequacy of technology and science. There are many cases where the primary cause of patient’s death is sheer incompetency of a healthcare practitioner. In legal jargon, this is called medical malpractice.
According to the data gathered by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were a total of 48 million surgeries in 2009. What is surprising about this data is not about the total number who have undergone to a surgery but the number of unnecessary surgeries which have prolonged the agony of many patient victims. There are 12,000 victims of unnecessary surgery every year according to American Medical Association.
Any type of surgery poses different danger to a patient. Aside from the pain and the risk, surgery seems to be expensive most of the time. Greed from the healthcare professionals dominates the system. Most of the times they want their patients to undergo surgeries so they can charge their skyrocketing rate. What makes surgery more expensive is the equipment used in a procedure. Some of the most common unnecessary surgical procedures still being insisted to patients nowadays are the following:
Heartburn surgery
Low back surgery
Pacemaker implant
Gastric bypass surgery
Hysterectomy
therapeutic knee arthroscopies
vertebroplasties
There are many studies available in the academe that say these surgical procedures are ineffective and by nature unnecessary. In the end these unnecessary surgeries only add risk to the mortality rate of patients. Most of the time patients experience swelling called systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS). This swelling can be attributed to some type of surgery. If your doctor recommended a seeming superfluous surgery, ask a second opinion from a specialist whom you can trust. You can also pursue your doctor by a medical malpractice lawsuit.
These are the factors that you have to consider once your doctor is asking for a surgery:
Age of your love ones
Surgery Type
General Health of the patient (take note of the BMI)
Medical conditions
How frequent has the hospitalization been
Surgical History
Period of hospitalization
There are many things that could happen after a surgery. If an infection persists, the mortality rate also increases. The increase of readmission rate and hospitalization length can also increase. Thus, medication and expenses also escalate.
Abuse in this field is very much subtle. People must be vigilant enough to recognize these grim scams. Our laws have provided society with the necessary tools to correct this crooked practice of some health professionals. Talk to the right counsel who can bring justice.