Aftercare: Medical Negligence During Your Recovery

Careful monitoring of your condition following a surgery is just as important as the surgery.

Post-operative care is supposed to monitor your status and make sure that no complications occur. This is the responsibility of your physician as well as a trained nursing staff. If you have suffered a serious complication that went unnoticed by the medical staff, you could be entitled to compensation for your injury. Bring the details of your case to a qualified Missouri medical malpractice attorney and allow them to help determine if medical negligence was the cause of your injury.

Infection is a Big Concern After Surgery

All medical procedures are associated with a certain amount of risk. Doctors and nurses are trained to monitor your condition afterwards and watch for signs that you are being affected by one. One of the biggest concerns is a post-operative infection. These can occur for any variety of reasons and if left untreated can quickly become serious.

Measures to Prevent an Infection

During your post-operative care, medical personnel should be looking for signs of an infection as well as taking measures to prevent one from occurring. Your wound site should be checked often and the bandages changed. If you went through an out-patient procedure, than a physician should go over with you signs of complication and what to do in the event that a complication does arise. Your Missouri medical malpractice attorney will carefully scrutinize the actions of the medical staff after your procedure to see if any negligence occurred.

Failure to Diagnose an Infection

A failure to diagnose an infection after a surgery will delay your recovery and could possibly make your condition worse. After surgery to repair a broken leg, a Missouri patient developed a severe infection at the site. It went unnoticed and untreated for days, risking his overall health and causing a delay in his recovery. A Missouri jury found the treating physician to be negligent in not noting the obvious signs of a developing infection and awarded the plaintiff $553,500 to cover the additional medical expenses as well as pain and suffering.

Deviating from the Standard of Care

In order to prove that medical negligence occurred, your Missouri medical malpractice attorney will need to show how the treating physician or medical staff deviated from a well known standard of care. Expert medical testimony will be required to establish what the accepted standard should have been had another physician been faced with the same circumstance. For example, in the above case, an elevated body temperature, or fever, is a sign of an infection. Another physician would have noted that on the patient’s chart and begun an antibiotic treatment immediately to help fight off an infection. Once the standard has been established it is then up to the attorney to show how your physician deviated from it.

Proving Medical Negligence

A medical negligence case requires a more exact burden of proof than your typical personal injury case. In order for you to receive compensation, contact Zevan and Davidson Law Firm at (314) 588-7200. We have the expertise needed to help you prove your case.

Photo credit: marissa via Flickr