Anesthesia

If there is ever a time in our lives when we are 100% dependent upon a physician for our well-being, and indeed our lives, it is when we are under general anesthesia. General anesthesia, by definition, is a medically induced coma with loss of our protective reflexes. It is carried out to allow medical procedures (like surgery) to be performed that would otherwise be intolerably painful to the patient.

All of our vital functions are under the direction and control of the anesthesiologist. That includes our blood pressure, rate of breathing, the amount of oxygen in our blood stream, heart rate and depth of unconsciousness. Various drugs and/or anesthetic agents are administered to a patient to cause them to become unconscious, to paralyze the muscles, and allow surgery or other medical procedure to take place.

During surgery, the anesthesiologist has equipment that monitors all of the patient’s vital signs. This equipment also has alarms that must be set before the surgery that lets the physician know if the patient is doing well. During surgery and while under anesthesia, there may be a drop in blood pressure, the heart may slow down, the concentration of oxygen dissolved or carried in the blood may drop—all of which must be immediately and properly diagnosed and treated by the anesthesiologist attending the patient. There are myriad drugs and treatments available to an anesthesiologist to counteract these problems. If the doctor fails to act or acts to slowly, horrendous injuries may result including brain damage and death.

There are many occasions of medical malpractice where the anesthesiologist has forgotten to set the alarms on the monitoring equipment or tries to handle multiple patients simultaneously in different operating rooms or did not have the proper drugs available to treat a patient who required immediate counteractive medications.

Indeed, medical malpractice involving anesthesia can occur under many different circumstances. Prior to anesthesia, the anesthesiologist is supposed to get a complete history from the patient and the patient’s medical records to see if the patient may be allergic or have a bad reaction to any of the drugs they will administer. The anesthesiologist must also assess the patient’s overall physical condition to determine how much risk to exists and whether the patient will be able to undergo the surgery with general anesthesia. The anesthesiologist must properly calculate the proper dose of anesthetic to give based upon the patient’s weight, age, type of surgery and duration of surgery. After surgery, the anesthesiologist must be certain that the patient is awake and alert, and not under the influence of any anesthesia before he leaves. A patient can stop breathing if still under the influence of anesthesia even after the operation is over. Failure to carry out any of these steps could be medical malpractice.

Beyond all of this, there are occasions when the anesthesiologist mistakenly places an endotracheal tube into the patient’s esophagus instead of the patient’s trachea. This leads to air being directed into the stomach instead of the lungs. There are also times when there is a “traumatic” intubation, causing injury to the traches or throat.

General anesthesia is not the only time that injuries can occur due to malpractice. Patients having spinal anesthesia (epidurals or spinal blocks) may suffer injuries due to mistakes made by the physicians administering the anesthetic. There can be trauma causing foot drop, paralysis or a host of other injuries caused by improper technique.

Sanocki Newman & Turret, LLP attorneys have achieved verdicts and settlements that are among the largest in New York state for a patient who suffered injuries due to anesthetic malpractice including $18,000,000.00 for a child who suffered neurological damage when, during the course of an endoscopy, she was deprived of oxygen while under anesthesia and $5,000,000.00 for the death of a patient who began suffering complications while under anesthesia, but there was no “crash cart” available to counteract the deterioration in the patient’s condition.

If you believe there was an injury as the result of medical malpractice, please contact our firm to discuss your case.