Anesthesia is meant to numb a certain part of your body or put you to sleep during surgery, so that you are made less aware of the intense procedure that is taking place. While this modern medicine is meant to do more good than harm, this is not necessarily the case if an anesthesiologist is careless in its administration. Well, with that being said, please read on to discover the most common risks of receiving anesthesia and how a seasoned New York City anesthesia error attorney at Mark L. Bodner, P.C., can help you determine if the consequences you faced constitute a malpractice claim.
What are the most common risks of receiving anesthesia?
Before you can even enter an operating room as a surgical patient, a hospital may require you to sign loads of paperwork. Most of this paperwork is to make you aware of the common side effects you may experience after receiving anesthesia. Namely, you may feel nauseous and experience vomiting, you may be in a state of grogginess, or you may have a sore throat. Nonetheless, these are all temporary conditions that should disappear as soon as the anesthesia wears off completely. And also, the hospital does not want to be blamed for any of these experiences.
What are the potential consequences if an anesthesiologist makes a mistake?
To reiterate, it is natural to feel nauseous, groggy, or sore after coming out of anesthesia. What is not okay, though, is if the anesthesia left you in a critical or permanent health condition. That is, adverse side effects may include bad allergic reactions, respiratory issues, strokes or heart attacks, or brain damage. This consequence may not have come from the anesthesia itself, but rather from the anesthesiologist who was administering it during your surgical procedure.
For example, the attending anesthesiologist may have failed to review your medical history closely before the procedure commenced. If they did, they would have known that you have a pre-existing heart condition, for example, and that they needed to choose anesthetic drugs that depressed your cardiovascular system while avoiding too light an anesthetic during surgery. They should also effectively communicate their plans with the other doctors and nurses scheduled to handle your procedure that day.
Even if they did their due diligence during pre-operative procedures, they may have failed to monitor your vitals closely during the procedure, such as your heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels, breathing rate, and body temperature. If they do not, they could be too late and cause preventable adverse reactions, such as cardiac arrest, especially if, again, you have a pre-existing heart condition.
If you believe you have suffered consequences due to anesthesia that were arguably avoidable, you may have a medical malpractice claim against the negligent anesthesiologist. As soon as you find yourself in potential legal trouble, you must retain representation and advisement from a competent New York City hospital negligence attorney from Mark L. Bodner, P.C. You should not have to put up this fight alone; we are here to help you.