According to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, the University of Illinois has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a medical malpractice claim alleging a surgical error that resulted in catastrophic brain injury to a young child in the Chicago area. The parties reached a proposed settlement, according to the article, just before the case was set to go to trial. In the lawsuit, the plaintiff (the toddler's mother) alleges that a pediatric surgeon at the University of Illinois's Chicago hospital "used a suturing device that severed the boy's pulmonary artery" in a surgery designed to repair a leak in his esophagus.
The proposed settlement included a total of $30 million. The University of Illinois will pay $10 million, while the Rush University Medical Center—also a Chicago facility where the pediatric surgeon operated on the child—will pay $20 million of the total. How common are surgical errors like the one reported here? And is this a common settlement amount in medical malpractice cases?
Learning More About Surgical Errors
Did you know that more than 4,000 preventable surgical mistakes happen every year? That is the figure provided by an article in WebMD Health News. These errors often are referred to as "never events," meaning that they are avoidable and never should happen. A report from the Patient Safety Network explains that the most common surgical mistakes include the following:
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