Can You Sue for Weight Loss Surgery Injuries?

What Happens If You’re Injured?

Surgeons owe every one of their patients a certain standard of care. 

Their level of skill, expertise, and care should be the same possessed and practiced by physicians in the same community under similar circumstances.

Your weight loss surgeon is held to the same standard as any other weight loss surgeon in the country, and you should be confident that you can undergo surgery without any additional risks.

Like any surgical procedure, gastric bypasses, lap-band procedures, and other weight-loss surgeries are risky.

Surgery in itself is inherently risky.

However, if something goes wrong, how do you know if it was an inherent risk or a case of malpractice?

When can you sue the surgeon or clinic for damages?

Surgical Standards Of Care

The only way to answer that question depends on the standard of care and whether or not your surgeon met it.

In every medical malpractice case, you need to determine whether your doctor or surgeon acted in a manner consistent with the expectations of the medical community.

Your weight loss surgeon needs to act in a way that is inconsistent with the standard of care upheld by other surgeons in his community.

If they don’t, they could be held liable for any harm that comes from not adhering to those standards.

Establishing that standard, and then proving your surgeon didn’t meet it, can be incredibly difficult.

You need to present expert testimony defining the standard of care, and proving your surgeon was negligent by not upholding that standard.

This is tricky because the experts in the field tend to be other doctors, and doctors like to avoid calling each other negligent.

Post-Surgery Steps

If you were injured during your surgery, and you think it’s due to medical malpractice, there are certain things you need to do as soon as possible.

If you were injured due to negligence from your surgeon, you need to start building your medical malpractice case right away.

Take these first steps right away:

Collect Relevant Paperwork.  Your diagnoses, prescriptions, bills, and any other documents you’ve received from medical professionals regarding the surgery could be relevant.
Contact the Medical Professional Involved. Sometimes a simple conversation can clear the air.
Contact the Relevant Medical Licensing Board. Although the board can’t compensate you for injuries, it can issue warnings or discipline to the surgeon.
Know How Long You Have to File a Claim. Look up your state’s statutes of limitation immediately. The laws on medical malpractice claims vary widely, and you don’t want to miss a deadline.