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If I read the OP correctly, the question is about criminal charges, not civil. Those are two very different things.
If you are only concerned about filing criminal charges (which is going to be necessary for the civil case), then really your girlfriend only needs to worry about cooperating with the police and the prosecutor. I imagine that assault and battery, willful endagement of a child and criminal negligence are all on the table here, and I'll bet that you find that the police and prosecutor both chomp at the bit to put this girl away.
I'm going to differ slightly with what people have said above about the civil charge. First and foremost, you need to decide what you want out of the civil case. If this girl either has money on her own or is still a minor living with her parents, you might be able to collect something. If she's poor and over 18, you may easily win $1M in a judgement and never see a dime. Obviously there may be something cathartic in a civil suit that's missing from a criminal one, but it looks like the police want to send her to jail for at least a few years. Once that happens, the likelyhood of her having the wherewithall to pay any judgement against her drops. Conversely, the civil case has a lower chance of succeeding if criminal charges are never filed.
As far as evidence collection, I don't think that you need to worry about it at this point. This kind of personal injury attracts lawyers like flies to a corpse, and that will be one of the tasks they're charged with to best represent you. This is definitely not a small claims court case, since we're talking surgery on a young child. As an insurance guy, I can tell you that generally speaking that kind of injury is worth $250k+, although that's by no means guaranteed.
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