Sep 04, 2014 in News Medical Malpractice

Medical Malpractice: The dangers of robot assisted surgeries

Operating rooms are now being more equipped with more advanced technology thanks to breakthroughs in technological innovations. Robots assisted surgeries in ORs is becoming a normal sight in the U.S. with hospitals boasting its available technology on brochures to attract patients. Canadian hospitals have adopted these innovations at a slower pace, but more and more hospitals in urban cities have shelled out the expensive costs to bring these systems to their surgeons. While a study conducted by the University of Michigan Congenital Heart Center found that using robot surgeries allows for a longer operation time and a shorter hospital stay, there's still debate within the medical field if these robots are worth the cost. The Vancouver General Hospital purchased the da Vinci surgical robot to assist with surgeries thanks to help with a private donation. But when funding ran out, the hospital began charging an extra fee to utilize the robot compared to opting for a traditional open table surgery. While the London Health Sciences Centre in Ontario offers the same treatment with the same robot for free, but it has a restriction on the number of surgeries it can do. ?However, the advantages are not as much as a lot of Americans claim,? Dr. Joseph Chin, chair of surgery oncology at the University of Western Ontario, told the Globe and Mail. ?We would like to expand our program, but we want to do more research, too.? One concern with use of these machines is having doctors who are properly trained in using them. Currently, there's no standard on how many procedures a doctor should do before they're considered knowledgeable with using the device with the number ranging from 18 to 250 operations, according to the CMAJ article. While these robots may be a great help, John Hopkins researchers discovered that surgical mistakes made with these robots are underreported. Since 2000, there were more than one million surgeries done using the da Vinci robot, but only 245 surgery complications, which includes 71 deaths, were reported to the FDA. This number is considered low for the number of surgeries being done using this device, says one of the researchers. The most common cause of death was excessive bleeding and gynecologic procedures led to the most reported deaths of 22. There were also 15 deaths in urologic surgeries and 12 deaths in cardiothracic surgeries. Hysterectomies using the machine had the largest number of procedures where patients survived, but faced complications, with these procedures accounting for 43 per cent of the surgical complications with the machine. In some cases, surgical operations involving robots were reported in the media, but weren't reported to the FDA. There have also been reports of robot malfunctions and 57 per cent of surgeons reported running into an unsolvable issue which led them to stop using the robot and switching to open surgery. One Phoenix resident is exploring legal options after a hysterectomy done by the robot left a hole in her intestine and she spent four months in the hospital recovering, according to Bloomberg News. A medical malpractice lawsuit in Chicago awarded the family $7.5 million after a man died from a spleen surgery done using the robot. The family's lawyers argued that it was the doctor's first time using the robot for a surgery and during the surgery, the man's intestines were punctured, which led to a fatal infection. Last year, makers of the da Vinci robot Intuitive Surgical alerted hospitals that one of the robot's instruments could cause burns to a patient. When something goes wrong in an operating room, it can lead to dire consequences for patients and their standard of living. When you visit a hospital with a health issue, doctors and nurses look out for your well-being, but sometimes there are issues that occur such as a heavy workload for a nurse, an unexpected birth-related injury, the hospital weekend effect or adverse reaction to drugs. Canadian hospitals need to improve their readmission rates and while we trust the people who help us, the reality is that hospitals are sometimes the start of an outbreak. The personal injury and accident lawyers at Neinstein Personal Injury Lawyers have been handling all types of injuries for over 40 years including injuries due to negligence by medical workers. We understand the impacts injuries can have on your life and we know how to help you. Call us at 416-920-4242. Set up a free consultation and come talk with us.