Do I have a case for medical malpractice against the original surgeon?

It is not out of the ordinary to develop an incisional hernia. It does not necessarily mean malpractice.

You need to speak with an attorney who specializes in Dental Malpractice.

As a necessary precedent to a suit, you must have your records reviewed by an independent doctor. Ask for a free consultation with a med mal lawyer; you?ll get a more thorough explanation.

In order to prove a medical malpractice case, a claimant must prove a failure to conform to accepted practice, resulting in an injury. A bad result is not enough, and if it is a "judgment call" by the doctor, there is no malpractice, even if the doctor made the wrong call. You will need to get copies of ALL of your medical records and have a surgeon review them; if he/she is willing to testify that your previous doctor(s) failed to conform to accepted practice, then you have a case.

In Florida, before you can bring a claim for health care malpractice, you have to obtain all of the pertinent medical records and have them reviewed by a "similar health care provider" chances are that the doctor against whom you wish to bring the claim is a general surgeon, so you would have to get an opinion (in an affidavit form) from another general surgeon that reasonable grounds exist to support a claim for medical negligence. Medical malpractice claims are very difficult to bring, and you have to jump through many hoops, so I would not encourage you to try to bring one by yourself, and as a matter of fact, I would strongly encourage you not just to hire a lawyer, but to hire one with experience in handling medical malpractice cases. You also need to know that the statute of limitations is 2 years from when you first had reason to believe there was malpractice, so you need to get to an attorney very quickly.

Collect your records and go to a medical malpractice lawyer. They should have experts handy willing to review the records for malpractice.

In Louisiana you have one year from date you knew or reasonably should have known something went wrong in surgery to file medical malpractice claim.

Whether or not you have an actionable malpractice claim depends on what, exactly, happened during that surgery. It is possible that the surgeon made a mistake, or that you, otherwise, received a substandard care. But it is also possible that the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, and the rest of the team were not responsible for the complications that developed during the surgery. You might feel that it is not likely because of the surgeon's behavior after the surgery and his refusal to operate on you again; but your feelings are not proof that the court might find sufficient. By law, you have the right to get a complete copy of your medical record from the hospital where the surgery was performed. It will cost you quite a lot of money: the courts decided that hospitals may charge "reasonable copying costs", which in reality translates into $1200-$1500 for an average medical record. The new surgeon has an opportunity to review your records without any charges; before planning a new surgery, he should find out exactly what happened during the first one. Try talking to him: perhaps, he would explain to you what landed you in an ICU. Doctors, however, don't like discussing professional mistakes of their colleagues with patients (you know, "Don't do to another what you won't like done to you"). Usually, they feel that the rule does not apply only if the other physician's mistake was absolutely outrageous. If your new surgeon does not put your concerns to rest, get your medical record and find an attorney who does medical malpractice cases and can review your records to determine whether you "have a case".