The parents of a child who underwent a procedure to remove a benign growth received a $1.5 million settlement when the procedure went wrong in 2012. The child, six years old at the time of the operation, did not receive an MRI prior to the surgery, as was the recommendation of a consulting radiologist. The radiologist suggested the MRI as a way to determine whether or not the growth truly needed to be removed, as the procedure to do so carried great risk. The parents of the child noticed a problem with facial droop immediately after the operation, though the attending surgeon insisted that the droop was merely a result of routine bruising and swelling. When it did not resolve, the parents, though legal professionals, accused the surgeon of being negligent. The case was settled out of court—one week before the trial would have been held.

According to HealthHype.com, facial droop is a condition which results in a sagging face and is caused by loss of facial muscle tone. Several natural causes can lead to facial droop, and include a malfunction of facial nerves which result in the distortion of normal facial structure.

The facial nerve is one of 12 cranial nerves that emerges directly from the brain and is considered high risk for complications. According to HealthHype, botched surgeries are a main cause of facial droop. Common procedures that can go wrong and result in droop include tumor resection anywhere along the facial nerve, surgery of the parotid gland, acoustic neuroma resection, mastoid surgery, tonsillectomy, and some dental procedures.

Another common cause for facial droop, which may be the fault of a medical professional, is birth trauma. According to The New York Times, the incorrect use of epidural anesthesia or improper use of medication to induce labor can lead to facial droop. The Times reports that facial droop affecting the lower part of the facial nerve is the most common type of facial nerve palsy resulting from birth trauma.

If you or someone you know has experienced facial droop as a result of a medical procedure, you may be eligible for compensation. Do not go through it alone. Contact an experienced Connecticut medical malpractice attorney today.

Knee replacements have long been one of the most common surgical implants. They are also one of the most common procedures in which patients experience subsequent problems because the device used was defective or not up to safety standards (though approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)).

According to a consumer report from SafePatientProject.org, 4.4 million Americans have knee implants, the vast majority of which were prescribed for osteoarthritis of the knee. Regardless of how many such procedures are undergone every year in the U.S., replacement surgeries continue to be a serious factor in the medical industry. Reported by the SafePatientProject, “an estimated 536,000 adults currently living with knee implants have undergone revision procedures to replace their implants.”

It is not as if the implants that needed to be replaced were manufactured by smaller or lesser-known companies. Biomet, DePuy, Smith & Nephew, Stryker, Wright, and Zimmer have all recalled knee implants that were used in patient surgery and that had previously been approved by the FDA. As of September 2103, DePuy had the most recalls, and Zimmer was a close second.

This July, however, Zimmer manufacturing “initiated another sweeping recall on one of its artificial knee implants,” according to DrugWatch.com. Noted by DrugWatch, the NexGen MIS Tibial Component is being recalled because of the tendency of the pieces to loosen or fail. There is no other explanation being offered other than shoddy manufacturing.

No matter the reason, more than 40,000 of these devices have been recalled, affecting thousands of patients nationwide. If a patient does not have the device removed, he or she may face side effects that include (but are not limited to):

• Bone loss;
• Early revision surgery;
• Infection; and
• Dislocation.

In the event of bone loss, infection, or dislocation, some patients could actually end up worse off than they were before the initial implant surgery.

If you or someone you know has had a Zimmer knee implant surgery performed in Connecticut, do not go through it alone. Contact Richard H. Raphael, Attorney at Law, an experienced Connecticut medical malpractice attorney, for a free initial consultation today.

Surgical errors are more common in the U.S. than one may think. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published a report stating how just less than 100,000 people in the U.S. died every year from medical mistakes. However, according to a report issued by the Journal of Patient Safety and as reported by Propublica.org, that number is now estimated between 210,000 and 440,00 patients each year.

The estimate includes patients who suffer any type of preventable harm such as misdiagnosis, surgical error, and patient mix-up. Propublica.org notes how this “would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in America,” third only to cancer and heart disease (the second and first leading cause of death in the U.S., respectively). Surgical errors are often the most serious of medical mistakes, because they are often irreversible mistakes that result in death.

An article in Medical News Today states how events that should never occur during surgery are known in the industry as “never events,” but these events occur far more often than never. Findings published in Surgery (as reported by Medical News Today) report more than 4,000 “never-events” happening each year in the U.S. And between 1990 and 2010, there were more than 80,000 of these across the country.

Examples of surgical error include extremely severe and identifiable mistakes such as a surgeon leaving a tool inside a patient’s body. By some estimates this happens about 39 times a week. Other surgical errors include a doctor operating on a wrong body part, or performing the wrong surgery. This happens less often, but still at a staggering estimate of 20 times each week. Malpractice claims arising from incidents of surgical error have cost the medical industry more than $1.3 billion between 1990 and 2010, according to Medical News Today.

Submitting a medical malpractice claim can be a long and arduous process. If you suspect that you have been a victim of medical malpractice or surgical error in Connecticut, the most important first step is to seek the counsel of a malpractice attorney. Contact a Westport medical malpractice attorney for a free initial consultation today.