Medical Malpractice: Cosmetic Surgery

Most people choose to have cosmetic surgeries done so as to improve their appearance for one reason or the other, however, as with all things relating to surgery things may go wrong and complications can arise and mistakes can be made and patients can suffer harm or significant injury as a result. If a surgeon or health care provider commits an error that rises to the level of medical negligence and a patient is harmed or injured as a result of such a mistake that allows the patient to file a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Cosmetic surgery is said to be a subset of plastic surgery which is aimed specifically at improving a person’s appearance. The most common types of cosmetic surgeries are:

• Liposuction
• Breast augmentation
• Eyelid surgery
• Tummy tucks
• Face and neck lifts

Elements of Medical Malpractice for Cosmetic Surgery
There are three elements of medical malpractice in cosmetic surgery:

1. There must exist a doctor-patient relationship – in most cases this is not disputed as the medical malpractice stems from a surgical error.
2. A breach of the medical standard of care in the case of treatment – this element revolves around the medical standard of care. The medical standard of care is typically defined as the level and type of care that a similarly qualified and skilled cosmetic surgeon would have provided under the same treatment circumstances. In order to establish the medical standard of care this will generally need an expert witness’ testimony. Such an expert witness will need to have experience in that field and ideally be familiar with the same procedure that resulted in the lawsuit. This is of great importance as cosmetic surgery is a highly-specialized field. Once the standard of care has been established by the expert witness, he or she will need to show exactly how that surgeon breached the standard, what the surgeon failed to notice, or failed to do or the missteps that the surgeon took.
3. Harm or injury to the patient which resulted from the breach in medical standard of care – the third element is far more difficult than it sounds. Similar to all other types of surgery there is a certain amount of risk that is associated with cosmetic surgery and as such the surgeon has the duty to inform the patient of such known risks before undertaking the surgery. If the patient is properly informed and agrees to the procedure and one of the risks he or she was informed about occurs, it does not necessarily mean that malpractice occurred. Instead the type or extent of the harm may have been unavoidable under the circumstances.  Further, a patient being unhappy with the results of cosmetic surgery is not considered injury and may not be a reasonable basis for a medical malpractice lawsuit.
   

If you feel that you have a valid medical malpractice case with respect to cosmetic surgery, find a law firm that knows the Alaska medical malpractice laws and can represent your interests in a lawsuit.

For more information with respect to medical malpractice, the author recommends visiting Crowsonlaw.com.