A common elective surgery, plastic surgery does carry a certain amount of risk for injury or even death. Just like any other surgery, plastic surgery requires the use of anesthesia; and thus, leaves such a surgery thousands of Canadians to be injured or die each year, plastic surgery is often the subject of medical malpractice lawsuits.
Elective Plastic Surgery Procedures
Some of the most common types of elective plastic surgery procedures that leave patients susceptible to medical errors include the following.
- Lip suction
- Breast augmentation
- Face lifts
- Gastric bypasses
- Stomach stapling
- Rhinoplasty
- Various other procedures that can take place in surgical centers, hospitals and doctor’s offices.
When a plastic surgery procedure is conducted in a hospital, your doctor may have numerous staff members to assist in the procedure like a board certified anesthesiologist, staff nurses, and critical care nurses all available to monitor patients. But, when you go to a doctor’s office or a surgical center for a plastic surgery procedure, you may not be given anesthesia, or if given it, may not have a person administering it who has extensive experience working with anesthesia. Consequently with the growing number of Canadians seeking plastic surgery, an increase in errors related to plastic surgery procedures has occurred in recent years.
Most problems that occur in plastic surgery procedures involve anesthesia and post-anesthesia recovery. This is typically due to the surgeon who performs the surgery not knowing how to properly handle an anesthesia-related incident and not utilizing a certified anesthetist when a procedure is done outside a hospital setting. In a lot of these medical malpractice cases, the plastic surgery appears to have gone successfully until the patient is severely injured or dies as a result of an anesthesia injury. Thus, it is highly important that patients be made aware of the risks of an elective surgery and carefully chose a plastic surgeon who they are confident is qualified and equipped to handle not only the plastic surgery but any emergency situation that might arise as a result of the surgery or anesthetic.
Anesthesia Errors that Result in Injuries during Plastic Surgery
Some of the errors that result in an anesthesia injury during plastic surgery involve the following.
- Inexperienced or untrained staff
- Communication mistakes between medical personnel who perform the surgery
- Failure of staff to adequately familiarize themselves with a patient’s medical records to deal with health conditions, allergies and medication sensitivities that might cause problems during a plastic surgery procedure
Since patients are usually unconscious during any surgical procedure, he or she is usually the last to know that a medical malpractice has occurred. Most medical mistakes, while correctible do no leave patients with permanent effects. However, when injury does occur as a result of medical negligence, those mistakes may be subject to compensation to the injured patient through the filing of a medical malpractice lawsuit against the doctor, staff, or hospital where the surgery took place.
If you have suffered an injury or lost a loved one as a result of a plastic surgery, contact an experienced medical malpractice lawyer immediately.
