Most people visit the doctor to make sure that they stay healthy. But sometimes, accidents or things might happen that could have been prevented with more careful supervision. How about when a doctor operates on your left arm instead of your right arm, where the problem is? Or when someone suddenly wakes up during a surgery because the anesthesiologist did something wrong? This could cause the patient to seriously injure themselves even more, or it could even lead to death.
In Atlanta, Georgia on the 25th of May, a dermatologist by the name of Dr. Windell Boutte is under fire for singing and dancing while executing surgery. HLN found more than 20 videos on a YouTube channel that shows her dancing and singing while operating on someone, apparently to promote herself. She has found 5 malpractice lawsuits filed against her, and she has reached settlements with 4 of them (Hartung, 2018).
Many patients have reportedly suffered infections and disfigurements, and one even had brain damage because of Boutte’s procedures. Many of the patients that Boutte did operate on was impressed by her achievements, as she graduated from UCLA and is board-certified by the American Academy of Dermatology, but then realized that she was not certified to do a lot of the things that she does to them, which is technically not illegal in Georgia (Hartung, 2018).
She is only one of the doctors who acted negligently towards her patients. These kinds of problems is classified as medical malpractice.
According to the US Census, in 2016 and 2017, about 294.6 million people use medical insurance, which pays for medical and surgery expenses (Berchick, et al, 2018). That’s about 91.2 percent of the US population. If anything, medical and surgical expenses are expensive, and it could feel worse if people are faced with a doctor that is negligent about his/her work. This is where medical malpractice comes in for those patients that feels that way and has enough evidence to back the up.
This chart is from the US National Library of Medicine, which shows the different physician specialties and the amount of closed malpractice cases plus the amount of years of coverage. This particular chart shows evidence from 1991-2005.
What Exactly is Malpractice?
In a survey made by the John Hopkins University research team, they found out that doctors often administer unneeded medical care for the patient because they are afraid that they will get filed for a malpractice lawsuit. According to the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys(ABPLA), medical malpractice is “when a hospital, doctor or other health care professional, through a negligent act or omission, causes an injury to a patient.”
In other words, if a doctor does something that could’ve been done better or a competent doctor wouldn’t have done, then the patient could potentially sue for medical malpractice if they have enough evidence for the doctor’s actions.
Misdiagnosis/Delayed Diagnosis
Approximately 12 million Americans are misdiagnosed by doctors every year (Firger, 2014). Misdiagnosis is when a doctor makes “an incorrect diagnosis of an illness or other problem”, possibly causing harm to the patient (Dictionary.com, 2018). Alternatively, the doctor can fail to diagnose a condition that has already gone on for some time, and patients can miss some treatment opportunities to make then feel better. This would be considered a delayed diagnosis, which can happen just as often as misdiagnosis.
Patients can file a lawsuit for this by showing what the doctor should have done about the diagnosis and how a competent doctor would not have made the same mistake. According to FindLaw, diagnostic errors can occur in 10-30% of all medical cases, meaning many cases of malpractice was caused by diagnosis problems. According to The Guardian, almost half of the people that got cancer was diagnosed late, making treatments less successful and reducing their chances of survival (Campbell, 2014).
This chart from Beyond Celiac shows the amount of patients that became diagnosed with Celiac Disease(an immune reaction to eating gluten) reveals that only 17% was correctly diagnosed while the other 83% was misdiagnosed or undiagnosed.
Childbirth Injuries
According to SnyderWenner, birth injuries can be one of the most devastating types of malpractice because of the kinds of emotions that the parents could feel because of it (WebAdmin, 2015). Many parents are quite happy if the woman is finally able to bear a child, and it can be very sad if an OB-GYN harms the mother or the child.
There are many ways that a childbirth injury could happen. According to HG.org, some of them could be failing to diagnose a mother’s condition that will be passed on to the child, failing to identify birth defects, and/or failing to identify an ectopic pregnancy(one that occurs outside of the womb and must be terminated right away).
This chart from The AWHONN Postpartum Hemorrhage Project of the amount of women that die during or after pregnancy. As shown, the US is ranked 47th in the world, with 21 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.
Medication Errors
This form of malpractice is also one of the most common types of malpractice along with misdiagnosis. This kind of malpractice can happen in many ways, such as a doctor might make an incorrect prescription, carry out a drug improperly, or, most often, give an improper dosage amount for the patient.
But then again, some medication errors can also happen because of the patients as well. According to Mayo Clinic, medication errors happen because of poor communication between your doctors or you and your doctor, drug names and medications that look alike, and medical abbreviations.
These are two different medications that look alike. The bottles look almost identical, which is why pharmacies got it mixed up. Both of them are antibiotics, but one is Ciprofloxacin and the other is Clarithromycin, according to ABC News.
Anesthesia Errors
Anesthesia mistakes are “relatively infrequent”, according to HG.org. But anesthesia mistakes can also be more dangerous than surgery mistakes. Why? Because even the smallest error made by an anesthesiologist could result in a patient’s permanent injury, brain damage, or even death.
According to NBC News, a 73-year-old Baptist minister by the name of Sherman Sizemore once had a rare case of an anesthesia error where he was able to feel all of the pain and discomfort while doctors carried out his surgery. On January 19th, 2006 in Charleston, West Virginia, the doctor was supposed to perform an exploration surgery meant to find the cause behind his chronic back pain.
But, the anesthesiologists did not give him the general anesthetic that he needed to stay unconscious until 16 minutes after they cut into his abdomen, which tormented Sizemore and proved to be a traumatic experience for him. It was so traumatic, in fact, that he committed suicide 2 weeks after the surgery.
This is a map of where local anesthesia(affects a restricted part of the body) is legalized in the US, from the American Dental Hygienists Association(ADHA). As portrayed, there are still 5 states that does not allow this type of anesthesia. This kind of anesthesia is risky because it only numbs the part of the body that is needed, instead of numbing the whole area like general anesthesia would, creating a higher chance that something might go wrong.
Surgical Errors
Lastly, another common type of malpractice is when a surgeon makes an error in the operating room that could cause the patients to suffer injuries and pain. The nursing could also be the potential problem though, not only the surgeon.
A few ways that a surgeon could make an error according to HG is “puncturing an organ or blood vessel, operating on the wrong body part, or leaving surgical equipment inside the body.” Each of these things could cause patients pain after the surgery. It is as dangerous as jumping off a cliff if a surgeon does any of these things.
A few ways that a nurse could make an error is acting negligently in postoperative care, giving out the wrong medications, use procedures that leads to infection, or not being able to give clear instructions for the patient’s post-surgery plan.
This is a chart from the US Department of Health and Human Services that shows the different types of wrong side surgery and how often they occur. The chart shows that it happens a lot on the wrong side, followed by a correct side but the wrong site.
There are so many ways that you could prevent malpractice from happening to you. Always remember that doctors are people as well, and of course even the smartest ones are bound to make mistakes at some point. Prevent this from happening by checking your medications and prescriptions, making sure to communicate with the doctor to make absolutely sure everything is correct.