Imagine this:

A woman gets into a car accident and has a CAT scan of her head. The radiologist correctly recognizes that there is a tumor in her head but fails to tell the patient about it. Nobody from the hospital ever contacts her about this very important finding.

Seven months go by, and her vision begins to deteriorate. Watch the video to find out what happens.

You undergo surgery and after leaving the hospital you have continued complaints of abdominal pain. Thinking it’s normal, you ignore it for a day or two but it continues to get worse. You call your doctor’s office and are told it is normal postoperative pain. Despite taking pain medication and resting, you get weaker, and your pain gets stronger. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to an emergency room to be evaluated.

When the doctors suspect that there is a hole in your bowel, you’ll have to go back into surgery. If the contents of your bowel were leaking from a hole, you’ll likely need to have part of your bowel removed and the remaining bowel sewn together.

The failure to recognize a bowel perforation is often grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit in New York. If caught early enough, treatment can be effective although prolonged and distasteful. Those unlucky enough to get to a hospital on time, suffer the indignity of death from an unrecognized bowel perforation.

You walked into the hospital thinking you were having routine surgery. The doctor told you “Everything would be fine.” The nurse wants you to sign informed consent papers, and reassures you that everything will be all right. You come out of the hospital believing that everything was done fine, and now you start to have post-operative complications that do not go away. You call the doctor’s office to get answers and help for your problems, and are told that it is nothing to worry about. You are in pain and your condition worsens, but still your doctor tells you it’s nothing to worry about. What do you do?

Chances are you will go to an emergency room to get evaluated. You may have a CAT scan for an MRI as well as a surgical consultation to determine whether your problems are related to the recent surgery. He may require additional surgery. Watch the video to learn about surgical misadventure and what happened to a man who had his common bile duct inadvertently clipped off during laparoscopic gallbladder removal.