Are all gallbladder injuries following surgery medical malpractice in Maryland? To put it another way, if you have suffered some harm following a cholecystectomy will this always mean medical malpractice occurred and you can recover against the doctor and hospital?
When you break this issue down further, you see in the basic question, are all bad results medical malpractice in Maryland, at least in my experience? The short answer is no and hopefully after reading this article and watching the corresponding video you will have a better grasp on the issues present.
ARE ALL BAD RESULTS FOLLOWING SURGERY MEDICAL MALPRACTICE?
You trusted the doctor and now you have suffered an injury following your surgery. This has prompted you to wonder are all gallbladder injuries following surgery medical malpractice? To better understand the question let’s discuss what is needed to prove medical malpractice in Maryland.
Maryland law requires that you prove that your treating doctor fell below the standard of care owed to you, causing your injury. This is done through the use of medical experts. These experts will give opinions as to not only the standard of care, but also whether the departure from the standard is what caused the injury.
If you step back, hopefully you can see that in some cases you can have a doctor do everything the correct way and a bad result occurs. This can be the nature of medicine. However, until a review of the facts of the case occurs, it is hard to automatically conclude medical malpractice did or did not occur.
ARE ALL GALLBLADDER INJURIES FOLLOWING SURGERY MEDICAL MALPRACTICE?
When you go in to have your gallbladder removed in most cases the doctor is going to do it laparoscopy. This means that small incisions are made in the abdomen and a camera and other small tools are used to perform the procedure.
Once inside, the doctor is supposed to identify the anatomy. He or she needs to know what the anatomy is before the cut because once a cut is made that is it.
The gallbladder is cut away from the cystic duct. This is what is supposed to happen. With that said, what can happen in practice is that the doctor can injure the common bile duct. The common bile duct is not supposed to be cut during the removal of the gallbladder.
One of two things can happen when the common bile duct is cut. The first is that the doctor will know it is the cut and start immediate repair. If the doctor notices the cut and it fixes it immediately, and the patient has no long-term issues, then this fact scenario will more than likely be a difficult case to pursue. This is because the patient really has no long-term injury and healed up with no problems.
On the other hand, if the doctor cuts the common bile duct and does not notice it, fails to immediately repair it, closes the patient up, and sends the patient on their way, problems will more than likely occur. The patient can get septic due to the leaking of bile in the abdominal cavity. In addition, the patient may have to have follow-up surgery, like Roux-En-Y.
Hopefully you can see the difference between the two examples. In the first example, the doctor noticed the cut and fixed it right away leading to no complications to the patient. However, in the second example the doctor cut the common bile duct, did not notice or repair it, and this led to further complications for the patient.
NEED TO SPEAK TO ME ABOUT YOUR GALLBLADDER INJURY?
Are all gallbladder injuries following surgery medical malpractice? Hopefully now you have a better understanding of some of the important issues and gallbladder injury cases.
If you have suffered an injury following your gallbladder surgery and you would like to speak with me further this is what I invite you to do. Pick up the phone and give me a call. I can be reached at 301-850-4832. I answer birth injury and medical malpractice questions just like yours all the time and I will be happy to listen to your story.
Marcus B. Boston, Esq.
Boston Law Group, LLC
2 Wisconsin Circle, Suite 700
Chevy Chase, Maryland 20815
