In reality, there is no such thing as a minor surgery. Whenever a Houston resident goes under the knife, he has to put a lot of trust in his doctors and other professionals to protect his health. A lot can go wrong in any surgery, from flagrant mistakes, like wrong site surgery or leaving objects in the body to more subtle, but just as serious, errors like failure to monitor a patient or errors related to the administration of anesthesia.
Of course, even surgeries that go smoothly can mean a lot of pain, ongoing care and down time after the operation. In most cases, a Texan is willing to accept these risks if the surgery is medically necessary for her health.
Unfortunately, there are many providers out there who, for a number of reasons, encourage or even tell their patients to undergo an operation that they do not really need. In extreme cases, this bad advice is best described as fraudulent or even criminal. There are, after all, doctors out there who are willing to put the money they make from surgeries ahead of their patients’ best interests.
In other cases, a doctor may be acting in good faith. However, due to a diagnostic error, lack of information or another shortcoming, his advice for a patient to undergo an operation is simply erroneous and falls short of the standard of care that Texas doctors owe to their patients.
It is not surprising that many of these unnecessary surgeries also wind up going poorly and leaving a patient in a worsened condition. After all, a doctor who is negligent in one area of her practice is more likely to be negligent in other respects as well.
Moreover, even if the surgery was performed correctly, a patient who discovers that their pain and recovery were totally unnecessary deserves compensation. This is particularly so if the surgery was life-altering, as in the case of a hysterectomy or the removal of a limb. Our office helps victims of unnecessary surgery get the compensation they deserve.
