Connecticut Injury Attorney Blog

Surgery in Connecticut as elsewhere involves certain inherent risks that are attendant to the nature of any operation. Sometimes delayed healing, infections and adverse reactions to anesthesia occur and are not the result of medical neglect on the part of the Surgeon or Hospital staff. There are, however, many types of occurrences which are considered more than the natural complications of surgery and often indicate the presence of a deviation from the Standard of Care for practicing surgeons and Hospitals performing surgery. A few that come to mind are cutting important nerves and tendons which are nearby and not intended to be injured as part of the surgery being performed. As an example, my office sued a Connecticut Orthopedic surgeon who while performing a carpal tunnel surgery, inadvertently cut the ulnar nerve resulting in severe restricted use of my client's hand and chronic pain. At his deposition, the Surgeon admitted that he had used the backside of his surgical blade to retract some tissue rather than a special blunt tool to do so and that is how it happened. A very substantial recovery was obtained but only after considerable litigation. Other situations involve performing the wrong type of surgery or performing it in a manner which unnecessarily injures healthy organs and bodily functions. A few years ago, my office had sued a Connecticut Colorectal surgeon who performed a low anterior colon resection which resulted in the loss of some significant bowel control and sexual impotence for my client who was in his forties. Aside from the issue of whether this surgery was even properly indicated, the low anterior approach versus a high anterior approach was problematic as it was usually reserved for Cancer patients due to the types of outcome which were known to occur. For a cancer patient where survival is at issue, taking the more invasive approach even at the risk of bowel and sexual function being impacted is generally felt by most patients and their surgeons as a necessary risk. The problem was that my client did not have cancer and the surgery could have and should have been performed utilizing an approach that was unlikely to injure him in these important areas. We have also seen retained sponges and foreign objects left in a patient inadvertently necessitating re-operation,severe infections and the like. Similarly, we sued and recovered a substantial settlement for a client that was told he had cancer and needed surgery when if fact the Hospital's pathology department switched his slides with that of another patient. The error was not discovered until after his surgery when the tissue removed during surgery came back with a cancer free report from the same pathology department. We can only hope that the hospital had the courage and good sense to immediately notify the other patient who no doubt was previously given the "good news" that they were cancer free!