Every surgery has its inherent risks; from bleeding to infection, fever, swelling, arrhythmias, stroke, and an adverse reaction to the medication used to make you sleep during the procedure – there's no such thing as a risk-free surgery.

When you're considering surgery, your biggest concern should be whether your quality of life will be better after the surgery, and if the risks outweigh the rewards.

When you place trust in a surgeon and go under the knife, the last thing you want to hear when you wake up is that your surgeon or a member of the surgical team made a mistake. If something went awry, does that automatically mean that you have a medical malpractice case?

Were you a victim of medical malpractice?

The fact that someone made an error does not necessarily mean that you have a medical malpractice claim. In order to have a valid claim, the procedure must have not adhered to the acceptable standard of medical care, and the substandard treatment must have harmed you.

In other words, if you were not harmed, or if you didn't suffer any damages, there is no malpractice claim. Essentially, if you can establish that a surgical error violated the standard of care, the next issue will be if you were harmed by the surgical mistake.

Causes of surgical errors:

• Surgeon's fatigue
• Drugs and/or alcohol
• Neglect or carelessness
• Not being properly prepared for surgery
• An inexperienced surgeon
• Poor communication
• Taking shortcuts at the expense of the patient's health

Surgical errors are wide-ranging, but commonly involve injuring nerves, administering too much or too little medication (anesthesia errors), wrong-site surgery, wrong-patient surgery, leaving surgical equipment behind in the patient, performing an incision at the wrong location, and nicking an organ.

If you are curious if your surgical error amounts to a medical malpractice claim, you should speak with a medical malpractice lawyer as soon as possible.