Page 11 - Avoiding Surgical Mishaps Part 1

SVMIC Avoiding Surgical Mishaps: Dissecting the Risks

Balancing these aims while practicing in a high-stress

environment, often in emergency situations, is quite a challenge.
The practice of surgery is one of the most highly respected

professions with some of the most expertly trained physicians.

In this course, we will review surgical paid claims and share
lessons learned from both the patient safety and malpractice

perspectives.

Indefensibility Issues

SVMIC reviews claims where we have paid a loss on behalf
of an insured. We attempt to identify the reason we were

unable to successfully defend the case in order to extrapolate
teaching points. Because these are the reasons that contribute

toward making the case more difficult to defend in front of a
jury, we refer to them as “indefensibility issues”. We are going

to be examining four major categories of indefensibility issues
relative to surgery throughout this course: communication,

documentation, systems, and medication errors.

In a number of the cases reviewed, medical judgment was

debated by experts. It’s important to keep in mind that even
if errors in medical judgment are present, not all mistakes in

medical judgment equate to medical negligence. Reasonable
medical judgment, even if it turns out to be wrong, may be

defended. However, if there are other risk issues such as those
identified in the following graph, the case becomes much more

difficult to defend. In this presentation, we will focus on the
previously listed risk issues of communication, documentation,

systems, and medications, which created difficulties in
otherwise defensible claims. Many of the topics explored in

this course fall into multiple categories. For example, informed

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