You can Sue the Hospital and Surgeon if the Wrong Surgery Was Performed
Attorneys at Pritzker Hageman represent people who suffer harm when a surgeon performs the wrong surgery. They and their team of lawyers gather and preserve evidence, hire medical experts and build a case that will win full and adequate compensation for our client. We are not paid unless you win.
You can call 612-338-0202 to contact a lawyer for your free consultation. We represent clients throughout Minnesota, and their offices are located in Minneapolis. They make hospital and house calls.
In prosecuting these cases, lawyers rely on a number of legal theories of recovery including medical negligence, lack of informed consent and battery. Damages are recoverable for pain, suffering, emotional distress, disfigurement, loss of earnings (and of earning capacity) and medical expenses. In appropriate cases, punitive damages are sought as well.
Medical malpractice cases involving the surgeon preforming the wrong surgery on a patient can involving any of the following:
- Removal of the incorrect organ. Recently, a hospital took the incorrect kidney out of a patient. The patient died shortly thereafter, having only one damaged kidney (the one that was supposed to be removed) remaining. These cases can also involve removal of a kidney, for example, instead of gallbladder (this happened).
- Surgery on the incorrect organ. An example of this would be an operation to drain fluid from a right lung where the doctor inserts the needle into the left lung before realising the mistake. Or if a patient goes in for a hysterectomy and gets an appendectomy.
- Surgical amputation of the wrong arm, hand, leg or foot.
- Surgery on the incorrect part of the body. This can be surgery on the right knee instead of the left. Common areas where this happens include: knee, foot/ankle, hand/wrist, spine, cranium, hip, chest, prostate, uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, heart, breast, shoulder, eye, ear, spine.
- The incorrect surgical procedure. There are many reasons for these mistakes. One surgeon said he had just finished surgery on one patient and then got confused and did the same surgery on the next patient. Fatigue often plays a role. Procedures that may be involved in these cases: biopsy, knee surgery (arthroscopy, meniscectomy, chondroplasty, anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction, replacement), shoulder surgery (arthroscopy, decompression, distal clavicle excision, debridement), carpal tunnel release, fracture repair, debridement, hip replacement, rotator cuff tendon repair, laminectomy, spinal fusion, intervertebral disc surgery, eye surgery (cataract, glaucoma, cornial, vitreo-retinal, oculoplastic).