Chicago Medical Malpractice Law Blog

In order to better prevent surgical errors, a bar code reader is now being put to use in the medical industry to help make sure that any surgical sponges used during operations are not left in the bodies of patients after the procedures.

Some mistakes during surgery are inevitable, but negligence from nurses and doctors in Illinois and throughout the entire U.S. can also create serious health problems for patients, including pain, injury or even a fatal infection. One common surgical mistake that can lead to serious or fatal injuries is the loss of a surgical tool or sponge inside the body of a patient. Now, some hospitals and medical facilities are using a bar code scanning system called SurgiCount to help prevent medical staff from making these types of dangerous mistakes.

When patients die from injuries caused by medical errors, families often question what other steps could have been taken to prevent these fatal medical mistakes from happening.

If a nurse had received better training, would he or she have been able to recognize that something was terribly wrong with a patient? If a hospital would have had better policies and procedures in place, would surgeons have been able to avoid making a mistake during an operation? If a doctor would have asked his or her patient one more question about the patient's condition, would the doctor have been able to properly diagnose the patient?

Oftentimes, families consider taking legal action after a patient's suspicious death in order to find answers to these types of questions and to receive some justice after their tragic loss. After losing their father and husband last year, the family of James Tyree, who was the former owner of the Chicago Sun-Times, finally reached a medical malpractice settlement with the University of Chicago Medical Center.

If you have a surgery coming up in the next few weeks or months, you might be feeling a little nervous about the procedure. You probably also have many questions for your doctor and the surgeon who will be performing the operation. What is the purpose of the operation? What will the next step be if the surgery doesn't help me? How long will it take me to recover? These are all very good questions that you should make sure you ask your doctor before surgery, but you should also make sure that you are informed about any complications that could occur during your operation.

No one wants to focus on the negative when it comes to health issues, but as one Illinois patient's case points out, it is important that patients are aware of the risks of any procedure so that they can make an educated decision regarding whether they want to take those risks. Perhaps one complication of surgery is paralysis, but the operation isn't necessary or will only result in minor improvements in one's health. With this in mind, would a patient still want to go through with the operation?

After living in a nursing home for nearly a year, one Illinois woman's five children were able to devise a plan to bring their mother home while also making sure that the 65-year-old woman continued to receive the medical attention and treatment she needed. "It was just...complete," one of the woman's daughters stated after her mother was able to leave the nursing home. The woman and her children were finally able to enjoy some normal family time together.

Before their mother was able to leave the nursing home, the family needed to find a medical center that they could take their mother to three times a week for kidney dialysis treatments. The woman's five adult children settled on a clinic in Cook County, and they began taking turns bringing their mother to the clinic for dialysis treatments in March 2009. But during the first week of the woman's treatments, a fatal mistake was made at the clinic. After trying to piece together what happened to their mother, the family filed a wrongful death claim against the dialysis center.