Surgical Item Allegedly Left Inside Missouri Woman’s Body
St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) July 02, 2013 -- A 45-year-old Missouri woman has filed suit against a St. Louis-based hospital and doctor because of allegedly life-threatening complications that arose after she underwent what was promised to be a minimally invasive, low-risk laparoscopic procedure in January 2012.
According to a court petition filed in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County, the plaintiff alleged that her gynecologic oncologist negligently left behind a surgical item inside of her body after performing a procedure to remove one of her ovaries, known as an oophorectomy.
St. Louis personal injury attorney Spencer Farris, of The S.E. Farris Law Firm, is representing the plaintiff in this medical malpractice case. “Our client placed her life in her doctor’s hands and entrusted her wellbeing to this hospital, and, through negligent actions, they jeopardized both,” said Farris.
According to the court petition, the plaintiff allegedly began to experience severe abdominal pain and sustained bleeding during her postoperative recovery. Upon investigating the source of her symptoms, doctors discovered a foreign item inside the plaintiff’s abdomen, which they determined was the cause of her suffering. The item in question was a piece of an “endobag,” a net-like bag used to facilitate the removal of body tissue during laparoscopic procedures, which allegedly broke off during surgery.
Objects inadvertently left inside patients’ bodies after surgery are known as “retained surgical items.” Retained surgical items are a preventable occurrence and, amongst other complications, have been known to lead to the development of uncontrolled infection, severe pain, sepsis, perforation of organs, and death.
In the study “Surgical never events in the United States” http://bit.ly/14cPo2D conducted by Johns Hopkins University and published online in the journal Surgery on December 18, 2012, patient safety researchers found that a surgeon in the United States can leave behind a foreign object inside a patient’s body an average of 39 times per week.
The most commonly retained surgical items, according to the study, are sponges and towels, but items like forceps, scalpels, clamps, and other instruments have been found as well. A press release detailing more information on the study can be found at the Johns Hopkins Medicine website. http://bit.ly/11Lz4Gu
“Our client underwent what should have been a low-risk operation and is now potentially facing a lifetime of complications,” said Farris. “There are standards and practices in place to ensure that these mistakes don’t happen. We want the hospital and doctor to be held accountable for allegedly not upholding these standards so that another innocent patient isn’t unnecessarily injured or killed in the future. Responsibility is a concept that is vanishing; she shouldn’t have gone through this.”
Traditional prevention methods typically include a pre- and postoperative manual count of items used during a given procedure, but this system is prone to human error with an estimated 68-77% success rate, according to studies cited in the USA Today article "What surgeons leave behind costs some patients dearly" http://usat.ly/12gR3kz. Newer, more precise methods use radio-frequency identification to track surgical items and can scan for objects that may have been left behind in a patient’s body, but sponge tracking technology is currently used by fewer than 15% of U.S. hospitals, according to the article.
“The outcome of this case won’t improve my client’s prognosis or restore her trust in the medical community, but it may very well save future lives. That alone is reason enough for us to pursue this case,” said Farris.
Founded by Spencer E. Farris in 2001, The S.E. Farris Law Firm is a St. Louis-based practice that specializes in providing legal representation for injury victims and their families in Missouri and Illinois. The firm is experienced in successfully resolving cases for injury victims involving defective products, auto injuries, work-related injuries, wrongful deaths, medical malpractice, discrimination, and more.
Spencer E. Farris is a Board-Certified Civil Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, a Missouri-Kansas Super Lawyer since 2005, and has been selected as one of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers in Missouri by The National Trial Lawyers Association and the American Society of Legal Advocates. Farris is also a member of The Justice Roundtable, The American Association for Justice, and numerous other organizations.
With the most recent successes of the firm, Farris has opened a new location in Sullivan, Missouri, where meetings with attorneys are by appointment only.
For more information about Spencer E. Farris, Attorney or The S.E. Farris Law Firm, visit http://www.FarrisLaw.net or call 314.252.9937.
About The S.E. Farris Law Firm:
Located in St. Louis, Missouri, The S.E. Farris Law firm focuses is on the needs of injury victims, so clients benefit from: our decades of experience with the complexities of personal injury law, our expertise and solid track record preparing for, and presenting, in court, and our knowledge of the legal procedures and technicalities necessary to win cases. For more information, visit http://www.FarrisLaw.net or call 314.252.9937.
Katrina Foster, KKPR Marketing & Public Relations, Inc., http://www.kkmpr.com, 570.296.2333, [email protected]
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