Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Millions of Americans visit emergency rooms across this country every year. Whether it be to an illness, the sudden onset of a new condition or disease, or due to trauma, the health care providers who are charged with staffing these emergency rooms are called upon to identify and treat often urgent medical issues. We as patients put our trust in these individuals, believing that their expertise will result in us getting the very best treatment. Emergency rooms in the United States, however, are often not the best place for us to get care. Substandard care in the emergency room is often the byproduct of overcrowded ERs, rushed physicians, tired physicians or simply an overwhelmed system. All of the factors contribute to missed or erroneous diagnoses.

There are a number of common errors that our attorneys see in emergency room cases. For starters, the symptom of chest pain is often overlooked or minimized. Chest pain is a non-specific symptom, but one that is consistent with several imminently life-threatening conditions such as a heart attack, pulmonary embolism or aortic dissection. Doctors confronted with chest pain must subject a patient to a battery of tests to determine the origin of the chest pain and attempt to rule out the potentially life threatening conditions first. These tests can include EKGs, CT scans, X-Rays, MRIs, MRAs, ultrasounds, bloodwork and other laboratory studies. In fact, many hospitals have what is known as a chest pain algorithm that spells out what steps and studies health care providers must take when confronted with chest pain to rule out potentially serious conditions. Failure to follow these algorithms can subject these doctors to liability.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Well over half of all of the potential new case calls that our office receives start out with the caller stating that they are not sure that they have a case, but they want to just talk to a lawyer to see if the care that they received constitutes medical malpractice. We understand. What constitutes medical malpractice is often times difficult for people to understand because they are focusing on primarily on the fact that they believe a bad outcome must necessarily be equated with malpractice. Unfortunately, that is not the case. In Maryland, medical malpractice is generally defined as a negligent act or omission by a health care provider that caused an injury to the patient. This negligence can be from something as simple as a medication error or failing to monitor a patient with a known history of falls, to an improper or delayed delayed diagnosis and/or negligent treatment following a surgery or other procedure. A recent study at Harvard found that more than 200,000 deaths each year are caused by medical mishaps, but only 25,000 to 120,000 of those are due to actionable medical malpractice/negligence.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

A 45 year old Connecticutman underwent surgery to treat a brain tumor back in 2013. Following surgery, the man began experiencing stroke-like symptoms and went to the emergency room where doctors performed an EKG. That study, designed to look for abnormalities of the heart and heartbeat, indicated abnormalities, however, the emergency room doctor failed to order standard blood tests or cardiac enzyme tests to further investigate the irregularities. Perhaps more damning, the emergency room physician did not request a cardiology consultation over the course of the next few days. The man remained in the hospital for several days and then was discharged to home. Less than 72 hours after he was discharged, the man suffered a massive heart attack that left him in a vegetative state on life support for several weeks. Ultimately, he passed away. The man’s estate subsequently sued the emergency room physician and the man’s primary care physician who had treated him in the hospital after the irregular EKG had been obtained. The allegations were simply that the abnormal EKG mandated that additional tests be performed because the findings suggested that a minor heart attack had already occurred. At trial, the man’s estate called expert witnesses in the fields of emergency medicine, cardiology and primary care medicine. Each of these individuals testified that the standard of care required these doctors to bring in a cardiologist, and that if a cardiologist had been consulted, the issues would have been addressed and the man would not have suffered the massive heart attack that he ultimately died from. The jury ultimately awarded the man’s estate $6.3 million.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

A South Carolina jury recently returned a $6.9 million verdict for a woman and her husband following a diagnostic radiologist’s failure to order additional imaging following a mammogram. The plaintiff, a 39 year old woman, and an employee of the radiology firm at which she received the mammogram, brought suit against the diagnostic radiologist following a routine mammogram that showed dystrophic calcifications in the right breast that had not been present on earlier mammograms. Dystrophic calcifications are well known to be associated malignancy in the breasts. The radiologist, however, characterized the calcifications as being benign and did not order any additional testing. The plaintiff argued that the standard of care required the radiologist, in his report, to recommend and/or order additional studies to confirm or refute his suspected diagnosis, including another diagnostic mammogram followed by a biopsy. Two years following the mammogram, the plaintiff discovered a lump in her right breast and was diagnosed with terminal Stage III invasive ductal carcinoma. She underwent chemotherapy and radiation but those efforts were unsuccessful. Following a two week trial, a jury awarded the woman $6.2 million and her husband $700,000 for loss of consortium (loss of enjoyment of the marriage).

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

A recent Illinois case highlights the perils of pregnancies today and the need for obstetricians to seek out the counsel of high risk specialists (maternal fetal medicine doctors) when an expectant mother has a high risk pregnancy. A pregnancy is often termed “high risk” if mom or baby has an increased risk of developing a health problem. By its very meaning, high risk pregnancies mean that mom’s pregnancy should be given special attention and enhanced monitoring for possible health problems. Some of the more common reasons pregnancies are deemed high risk are:

1. Mom has a health problem like diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure,or kidney disease;
2. Mom uses alcohol, drugs or smokes during the pregnancy;
3. Mom is younger than 17 or older than 35;
4. Mom has had 3 or more miscarriages;
5. your baby has been found to have a condition like Downs Syndrome or heart/lung/kidney problems;
6. Mom had a problem in a past pregnancy such as pre-term labor, pre-eclampsia or seizures;

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

A recent Washington State jury awarded the surviving wife and two sons of a 42 year old man $2.35 million after a physician failed to take him off a previously prescribed blood thinner. The decedent, Kenneth Stevens, developed deep vein thrombosis, more commonly referred to as DVT, in one of his legs.

Deep vein thrombosis occurs when a blood clot(thrombus) forms in one or more of the deep veins in your body, usually in your legs, but sometimes in your stomach or elsewhere. Deep vein thrombosis can cause leg pain or swelling, but may also occur without causing any symptoms. The development of DVT can occur if you a hospital patient does not move for a long time (i.e., after surgery), following an accident, or as the result of other medical conditions such as a blood clotting disorder, cancer, or inflammatory bowel disease. The development of DVT is a potentially life-threatening emergency because the blood clots in the legs or stomach can break loose (they usually form and stick on the interior walls of the veins), travel through your body via the bloodstream, and lodge in your lungs or heart, blocking blood flow. Clots that lodge in your lungs are commonly referred to as pulmonary emboli (embolism).

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

A Georgia jury recently awarded a man who was rendered a quadriplegic following a routine blood draw nearly $15 million in lifetime care costs. The man, Cris Nelson, was scheduled to undergo a routine blood draw at an Emory Healthcare clinic outside Atlanta, Georgia. The technician performing the procedure placed Mr. Nelson on an examination table as opposed to a chair, as is the recognized standard of care. During the course of the blood draw, the man complained of being lightheaded and dizzy, but no steps were taken to secure him by the technician. Ultimately, while the technician had turned away from the man, he fell off the examination table and suffered a catastrophic injury to the C3-C4 level of his spinal cord, resulting in quadriplegia. Prior to the injury, he had been a commercial truck driver earning roughly $46,000 annually.

At trial, the defense conceded liability but fought the case on damages, essentially arguing that the cost of providing care to Mr. Nelson, age 51, was not nearly as high as $15 million dollars the plaintiffs were alleging. In support of their case, the Plaintiffs called a number of experts in various fields including, a life care planner, an economic, a vocational rehabilitation counselor, physical therapists, and neurologists, each of whom testified that the injuries that he suffered were severe and permanent, requiring a lifetime of round-the-clock care. The jury agreed.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

A Philadelphia jury recently awarded an 11 month old baby and his mother $10.14 million dollars following a hospital and emergency room physician’s failure to timely diagnose the child with meningitis.

Bacterial meningitis is a very serious and potentially deadly infection that generally strikes young children. Death can occur in as little as a few hours following the onset of the infection, and therefore, prompt diagnosis and treatment is essential. Several different types of bacteria are known to cause meningitis, including Streptoccocus pneumoniae, group B Streptoccocus, Neisseria meningitdis, Haemophilus influenzae and Listeria monocytogenes. About 4,100 cases of bacterial meningitis are diagnosed each year, with 500 of those resulting in death. Babies are generally considered to be at increased risk for bacterial meningitis. Meningitis symptoms include the sudden onset of fever, headache and a stiff neck, nausea, vomiting, photophobia and altered mental status. If bacterial meningitis is suspected, samples of blood or cerebrospinal fluid are collected and sent for testing.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

An Illinois jury recently awarded the Estate of a 68 year old woman who died following a fall in a nursing home over $1 million. The decedent had been recently admitted to a rehabilitation center under a care plan that required aides to utilize a Hoyer lift whenever they were transferring her from one place to another. A Hoyer lift is a mechanical device that can be operated either manually or under power to effortlessly transfer a patient. Notwithstanding the physician orders requiring the Hoyer lift use, aides attempted to transfer the decedent in a shower facility without use of the device. As a result, and not surprisingly, the woman fell fracturing her hip. Following the fall, the decedent required a hip replacement surgery. The surgical site, however, became infected, which in turn required several additional surgeries in an attempt to clean out the infection. Those surgeries were unsuccessful. Unfortunately, the infection spread to the tissue surrounding the hip prosthesis and the implant was forced to be removed. The prosthesis was never able to be replaced and as a result, the decedent was never able to walk again, up to the point of her death. At trial, the estate argued that the nursing home operator was negligent in failing to properly monitor/supervise the woman and/or follow the clear instructions on the use of the Hoyer lift.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

A Philadelphia jury recently awarded a 57 year old woman $44.1 million in a case against a critical care physician and local hospital after both failed to properly monitor her APTT score following surgery.

The plaintiff underwent surgery at the hospital to remove a noncancerous tumor. Afterwards, hospital health care providers administered Heparin (a blood thinner) to prevent the formation of blood clots. Monitoring for blood clots involve an assessment of a patient’s coagulation rate by a test called the activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT). Over the course of the first 6 post operative days, the APTT tests showed that the plaintiff’s coagulation rate was moving from the normal range to the high end of normal. The staff stopped the testing. A few days later, the plaintiff suffered a catastrophic brain bleed that rendered her paralyzed in her right leg and on her left side. She is now largely confined to her bed and requires 24-hour care. At trial, plaintiff’s experts testified that the APTT testing should have, pursuant to the standard of care, continued to be monitored daily for well beyond 6 days, and that had it been done, health care providers would have realized that her coagulation rate was becoming abnormal and her blood becoming too “thin” thereby depriving the brain and other organs of vital blood/oxygen.

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