The Verdict

What do you do when you've experienced a wrong-site, wrong-patient or wrong-procedure surgical error?

• Wrong-side surgery, the Nursing Obligation
• Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Doc Heading to Lefty-Right K-Grade Rehab
• Can nurses be liable for an unconsented surgery?

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Client Toolbox

What do you do when you've experienced a wrong-site, wrong-patient or wrong-procedure surgical error?

• Florida: Wrong-site, Wrong-patient, Wrong-procedure or "never-events".
• New England Journal of Medicine: A pre-surgical checklist includes the time-out.
• Minnesota Patient Safety Reports - Preventable Errors
• PAMELA G. ROCK vs. WARHANK, BLUE GRASS FAMILY, et. al. - Medical Malpractice Statute of Limitations

Wrong-Site Surgery Staff Training Video Kit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nszv7y2lEp4

Hello again. It's me the civil trial lawyer that politicians love to have you hate. Yup it's me the unapologetically brash, shamelessly hopeless civil trial lawyer that apologizes to no one for being one.

I’m back from vacation. I took two weeks to travel to Russia and climb on Mt. Elbrus in the Caucusas with my friend and guide Wally Berg. Berg Adventures is run by a straight talking woman known as Leila Berg, who like myself is equally frank and she hails from South America. I’ll be adding photos to my personal site but for now let’s talk about the Injuryboard and Lombardi Law Firm blawg themes for the month of August.

This month we are going to blawg about surgery. To be more specific we will cover an area of medical negligence known as wrong-site, wrong-procedure and wrong- patient surgery. If you don’t think this is a real problem then you need to follow along. We’ll discuss a few specific cases to which I’m acquainted along with the “time-out” that should resolve these issues for patients who go “under the knife”. I or Justin or Megan will discuss ways in which you can protect yourself and your loved ones from these devastating mistakes.

To set the record straight I have friends and clients who are surgeons. They are people I admire and respect. They are good at what they do. They care for their patients. Like lawyers we’ve got a few bad apples, for whatever reason won’t change with the times and some times their mistakes have terribly complicated the lives of my clients. I’m not here to bash all surgeons so don’t take it that way. What the good surgeons can take from this blawg, is knowing that I’m teaching their patients how to recognize their superior skills when it comes to doing surgery. If all patients understood how to recognize a skilled surgeon by his/her preparation, we wouldn’t have the need for so many lawyers to clean up the mess for those that don’t’ change with the times.

To put it all in perspective consider this analogy. How upset would you be if after taking your car into the garage for repair work you discovered the mechanic put the new tires that you paid for on another customer’s car? Or, how upset would it make you if the instead of a brake job the mechanic changed the oil? And then what about if instead of fixing the right fender that has the dent, the body man replaced the perfectly good leather upholstery?

Now to fully appreciate what this is all about; consider the following real life examples of this type of negligent conduct and the ramifications to you.

1. Having a surgeon remove your one healthy lung instead of the diseased lung.
2. Or how about operating on the wrong side of your brain?
3. Or amputating the wrong limb?
4. Or the surgeon begins to operate on the patients left side for a right side inguinal hernia repair discovers the error, blames the patient and then the patient receives a bill for both the left and right surgeries?
5. At age 29 you awaken from surgery to discovery your ovaries, perfectly healthy, have been removed.
6. You awaken from gall bladder surgery and are informed, oops, you’re going to be mad at me but I tied your tubes even though you made it clear before we started you wanted to have children. Sorry! See you at the country club!

This should be an interesting month in that Injuryboard is also focusing on this subject. Please be patient with us here at Lombardi Law Firm as it’s Iowa State Fair month, three kids are heading back to college, we are moving houses, Barbara and I just got married on July 5^th, Justin heads back to his second year of law school leaving us short handed and as I earlier pointed out I’m just back from mountain climbing and Barbara isn’t finished retraining me for civilization.

As I am fond of saying, “onward we march”!

Lombardi Law Firm
1300 37th Street, Suite 6
West Des Moines, IA 50266
Phone: 515-222-1110
Toll Free: 800-383-0331

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