Surgery Malpractice & Consent Documents

Can I File a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit if I Signed a Surgical Consent Document?

Before you can undergo any medical procedure, your doctor will have you sign an informed consent document.

In a nutshell, an informed consent document is a complete description of a procedure as it relates to the patient. Surgical consent documents are essentially the same, except they are in relation to a surgical procedure. It may seem that these documents are meant to make sure the patient is making an informed decision, but they are really designed to protect medical professionals from lawsuits. This does not mean, however, that if you signed a surgical consent document, you can't sue for medical malpractice. It just means that the process is a bit more complicated.

While the details may vary, a surgical consent document should contain the following elements:

• Detailed explanation of the procedure, including side-effects.
• Description of the surgery's purpose.
• Description of the condition to be treated by the surgery.
• Discussion of possible risks, including:
  • Preexisting conditions that might make the surgery dangerous for this particular patient.
  • Possible benefits of the surgery.
  • Potential alternatives to surgery and the known risks and benefits associated with those alternatives.
• Discussion of the medical consequences of not accepting the surgical procedure.
• Explanation of possible unforeseeable risks associated with the surgery.
• Acknowledgment that, should the patient choose not to have this surgical procedure, he or she will not be ineligible for any other current or future health care services.

The surgery consent document should allow the patient to make a reasonably well-informed decision about the procedure in question.

If a patient who has signed an surgical consent document is attempting to bring a medical malpractice lawsuit against a medical professional, he or she must apply three standards to the medical professional's conduct: the reasonable physician standard, the subjective patient standard, and the reasonable person standard.

The reasonable physician standard is the course of action that one could expect any reasonable physician in the field to take. In other words, the actions of the defendant are compared to what other doctors might do. If the defendant's actions are found lacking in some way, he or she does not meet the reasonable physician standard.

The subjective patient standard concerns what the particular patient involved in the procedure would want to know in order to make an informed decision. Obviously, this standard is different for every patient and this is why a physician should have a thorough understanding of his or her patients before suggesting a risky procedure.

The reasonable person standard simply asks whether or not any reasonable person (not the particular patient) would have undergone the surgical procedure, had he or she known what was presented on the surgical consent document.

If any of these standards are not met, a medical professional is likely susceptible to a medical malpractice lawsuit, even if an surgical consent document was signed. As you might expect, all these standards make medical malpractice suits extremely complex. If you attempt to bring a medical malpractice suit without an experienced attorney, you may quickly find yourself overwhelmed.

Fortunately, our medical malpractice attorneys have twenty years of experience working with victims of medical malpractice and we know how to make medical professionals take responsibility for their mistakes. If you are considering filing a medical malpractice claim, let a Dallas medical malpractice attorney from Grossman Law Offices make sure you get the compensation you deserve.