I called the surgeon's office about the wound before ending up in the ER. Does that matter?

Enormously - phone logs and triage notes documenting reported symptoms establish when the practice knew and failed to act.

Delaware Post-Surgical Infection Lawyer

Q: What about hospital-acquired infections like MRSA?

They become cases when infection-control breaches or response delays can be shown.

Here is the honest frame for these cases: infection is a known risk of surgery, and an infection alone is usually not malpractice. The malpractice lives in what happens next — the fever charted but not worked up, the wound complaint dismissed by phone, the days of delay while sepsis develops. Recognition and response failures turn a treatable complication into an amputation, organ damage, or death. Those failures are provable.

Post-Surgical Claims: Key Facts

Recognition duties: Post-op protocols define what fevers, wound changes, pain escalation, and lab trends require – dismissing them breaches the standard of care.
Discharge and follow-up: Patients sent home need real warning instructions and responsive follow-up. “Take Tylenol and watch it” to a reported infected wound is a case pattern we know well.
True technique failures: Contaminated instruments, retained foreign objects (which excuse the affidavit-of-merit requirement under 18 Del. C. § 6853), and bowel perforations missed intraoperatively also occur.
Deadlines: 18 Del. C. § 6856 – generally 2 years, extendable to 3 where the injury could not reasonably have been discovered.

The Timeline Wins or Loses These Cases

We chart every symptom report, phone call to the surgeon’s office, vital sign, and lab value from surgery to rescue. Against infectious-disease expert testimony on when intervention would have changed the outcome, the delay window – and the damages it caused – becomes concrete.

Post-Surgical Infection FAQs

I signed a consent form listing infection as a risk. Do I still have a case?

Consent to a known risk is not consent to negligent response. The form does not excuse missed signs and delayed treatment.

I called the surgeon’s office twice about the wound before I ended up in the ER. Does that matter?

Enormously – phone logs and triage notes documenting reported symptoms establish exactly when the practice knew and failed to act.

What about infections caught in the hospital, like MRSA?

Hospital-acquired infections become cases when infection-control breaches or response delays can be shown – the organism, timing, and unit infection data all inform that analysis.

An infection after surgery spiraled? Call (302) 297-7775 for a free case review.