There are countless surgical procedures available to doctors today to treat a number of conditions. Nonetheless, even life-saving surgery necessarily involves damaging the body. It can take months to recover fully as blood vessels and nerves restore, and many surgeries cause substantial changes in a patient's life. In cases where there are non-surgical options that work just as well, such as medication, doctors who prescribe or perform unnecessary surgery may have committed medical malpractice.
Medical malpractice is a criminal offense. Doctors are trusted to care for the well being of others; when they are negligent, other people suffer or die as a result. People whose lives have been permanently altered by unnecessary surgery have been the victims of a crime like anyone else, and they are entitled to seek compensation for their medical expenses and pain and suffering.
It takes a lot of work to ensure a successful surgery. Our bodies only know that they are being cut open, whether or not they are being cut open for life-saving heart surgery. That's why surgeons go to lengths to ensure a sterile environment, and why they try to ensure things heal properly. But surgery does not always go ideally: surgeons can make mistakes, and doctors must keep an eye out for dangerous complications. For these reasons, surgery should never be taken lightly.
More than in many other countries, American doctors recommend certain surgeries far more frequently than their counterparts elsewhere. For example, women in America receive four times as many hysterectomies as women in Sweden. Hysterectomies can sometimes be life-saving, but they also cause tremendous changes in a woman's hormone balance. With her body's reduced ability to produce both estrogen and testosterone, she would be at greater risk of heart disease and osteoporosis.
Every year, upwards of 12,000 Americans die from unnecessary surgery. Up to 200,000 people die from other preventable medical errors. Many of these surgeries were the result of a misdiagnosis. In many cases the surgery was either the wrong operation, or an operation performed on the wrong person. There have even been numerous cases of a doctor amputating the wrong limb. With the damage a mistaken surgery can do, doctors are expected to take every caution.
People who have been harmed by unnecessary surgery can hold their doctors responsible for medical malpractice. However, some malpractice lawsuits are from patients who were not harmed very severely. Sorting out the legitimate victims from the others can be difficult. Only a lawyer can educate you about what steps you must take to successfully convey your suffering and win compensation.
To learn more about medical malpractice law, contact the experienced Kankakee medical malpractice lawyers of Spiros & Wall today.
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