Medical mistakes leading to malpractice lawsuits happen every day in doctor’s offices and hospitals around the world. Unfortunately, some of the cases lead to more serious consequences, including wrongful death. Here are some of the more well-known examples of medical malpractice.

• 1) Anesthesia Mistake

  Medical malpractice occurs often in surgeries, including using too much or too little anesthesia. One such case occurred when a 73-year-old man named Sherman Sizemore struggled through the first 16 minutes of his surgery unable to speak or communicate, but able to feel every part of the abdominal exploratory surgery. The anesthesiologist failed to give him general anesthesia to put him asleep until 16 minutes into the surgery. Sizemore felt everything and was aware the surgery was going on.Two weeks after the surgery, Sizemore committed suicide, assumingly because of this “wide-awake surgery” trauma.

• 2) Performing Surgery on the Wrong Body Part

  Medical malpractice errors also occur when the surgery is performed on the wrong part of the body. In the case of comedian and Saturday Night Live (SNL) alum Dana Carvey, a heart bypass operation went horribly wrong. Dana was supposed to have a double bypass operation, but the surgeon bypassed the wrong artery. The doctor claimed that it was an easy mistake to make because of the position of his arteries.

  After the malpractice lawsuit, Dana Carvey settled on $7.5 million lawsuit from the hospital and the surgeon.

• 3) Leaving Surgical Tools Inside the Patient

  There have also been some examples of medical malpractice involving surgical tools or accessories left in the patient when the surgery was complete. In 2000, Donald Church was having a tumor removed from his abdomen. However, it was determined shortly afterward that the surgeon had left a 13-inch metal retractor in his abdomen and they had to go back in to perform a second surgery and remove it.

  This also wasn’t the first malpractice suit at the Washington Medical Center of the same variety.

• 4) Medical Negligence

  A major case of medical negligence on the part of administrative support staff at a fertility clinic in New York is what led to a malpractice suit. Nancy Andrews went to the fertility clinic to have an embryo transferred with her husband’s sperm. However, the DNA samples were mixed up, and she gave birth to a daughter in October 2004 who had no resemblance to the mother or father. They found out the hospital mixed up samples and the sperm sample was from another man who also gave a sample to the fertility clinic.

  The Embryologist and fertility clinic were sued for malpractice.

• 5) Emergency Room Malpractice

  In an unfortunate wrongful death malpractice suit, a woman did not receive fast enough care in the emergency room and the hospital ignored her symptoms. This led to her dying on the hospital floor. Esmin Green entered the Kings County Hospital emergency room in June 2008 and waited in the emergency room for nearly 24 hours, and was still not called back by a physician. She collapsed on the floor and nobody was there to intervene.

  Her family sued the hospital for malpractice.

If you feel that you have been involved in a questionable medical situation that has caused unnecessary damages consider interviewing a professional medical malpractice lawyer to represent your case as soon as possible. These types of lawsuits can be more complicated, many times requiring a knowledgeable and experienced attorney in the medical field.