Surgical errors at VA hospitals can take many forms: operating on the wrong site, leaving a surgical instrument or sponge inside a patient, damaging a nerve or organ not involved in the intended procedure, or performing surgery without adequate informed consent. When surgical errors at VA hospitals happen, patients pursue them through the same FTCA framework as any other VA medical malpractice claim, but surgical cases often carry their own particular evidentiary demands.
What makes surgical error cases distinct:
- Operative reports, anesthesia records, and post-operative nursing notes usually serve as central evidence.
- Expert testimony typically needs to address not just whether an error occurred, but whether it fell below the accepted surgical standard of care for that specific procedure.
- “Never events” (errors that should essentially never happen with reasonable care, like wrong-site surgery or foreign object cases) can sometimes strengthen a claim, since the government has a harder time attributing them to an acceptable clinical judgment call.
As with any FTCA claim, a surgical error case still requires you to file an SF-95 administrative claim within the applicable deadline before you can proceed with a lawsuit. If you experienced a complication after VA surgery that felt like more than an accepted risk, it’s worth having an independent reviewer examine your operative and follow-up records. See our VA & military malpractice practice page for more on how we evaluate these cases.
If a VA healthcare provider or VA facility has injured you or a loved one, you may be able to recover compensation. Contact our office and schedule a free consultation.