How Do You Determine Whether Surgical Malpractice Occurred?

Transcript

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surgical malpractice can be a difficult
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area because during surgery there’s
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really only one person that actually
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sees what’s happening and that’s the
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surgeon and he documents what’s
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happening in what he calls an operative
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note which is made a part of your record
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it is a note that he dictates about what
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he did immediately after surgery because
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the surgeon is the only one who saw what
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occurs and surgeons rarely will document
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an error into their op note they’ll
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rarely say in that note a mistake was
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made the wrong thing was cut too much
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pressure was applied uh they use kind of
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the standard language that doesn’t
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contain the details of any sort of a
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mistake it can be difficult to prove um
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by deposition because the surgeon is
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always going to deny the negligence and
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so what you really need are very
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experienced Physicians who one
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um understand where these hers generally
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occur and you also need an important
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look at the postoperative care where
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some other physician has gone back and
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either reoperated or looked at those
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medical records and determined what the
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error was so surgical care is frequently
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proven through um the treatment that
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they get rather than the actual surgery