Will Cameras in Florida Operating Rooms Prevent Surgical Errors?

A growing number of people are expressing their support of a new idea concerning operating rooms across the nation. If the ideas lead to procedural changes, there might someday be video cameras in hospital surgical suites in Florida and elsewhere. Some who have suffered the untimely deaths of a loved one due to surgical errors stated that their tragedies might have been avoided if the surgeries of their family members had been recorded on video.

Reports of failed surgeries abound. One man is mourning the loss of his wife, who died during a very routine medical procedure involving her pacemaker. Another man’s wife suffered neurological damage during a surgery meant to relieve numbness in her limbs. In yet another horrifically tragic case, a woman’s daughter underwent surgery wherein the physician perforated her esophagus and colon, then continued to operate on her after she died.

It has been estimated that more than 400,000 people die every year in the United States as a result of medical errors. Most of the errors could have been prevented. Grieving families have lamented that, if video and audio devices had been installed in the operating rooms where their family members were undergoing surgeries, they might now know the full stories of why their loved ones died. A surgeon from another country has created a black box that records all pertinent data of a patient’s operation so that medical staff members can later view the recordings and critique their own work.

A bill has been launched in Wisconsin that would require cameras to be installed in all operating rooms in the state. The bill, entitled, the “Julie Ayer Rubenza Law” has been named after a woman who died from too much propofol during breast augmentation surgery. Her brother founded an organization for medical malpractice victims and was instrumental in drafting the bill. Any person in Florida who has lost an immediate member of his or her family because of surgical errors is able to contact an lawyer who has experience in medical malpractice cases for the purpose of filing a claim and seeking compensation for damages on behalf of the deceased loved one.

Source: dailyherald.com, “A growing push to document surgeries with cameras in operating rooms“, Tom Jackman, Aug. 30, 2015