Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Our medical malpractice team has read of successful medical malpractice cases brought by patients who recorded (sometimes surreptitously) their own procedures and/or placed recording devices in loved ones’ hospital or nursing home rooms, and subsequently captured evidence of neglect. Many states such as Illinois and Indiana, as a result, are now introducing legislation that would give patients the right to elect to have their surgeries recorded. The arguments in favor and/or against doing so are many. On the one hand, patient advocates believe such recordings will keep doctors accountable and help them learn from mistakes. These individuals argue that because much of what is in dispute in a lawsuit is what really happened during the surgery, that such recordings would clear up this confusion. On the other hand, doctors and health care providers are concerns about invasions of privacy and believe that such measures will only increase the number of lawsuits and financial burden on the health care system. Of course, a natural response to this argument is that if a doctor or health care provider truly acted within the standard of care, then a recording should demonstrate that and only serve as a benefit to their defense. In addition to state laws, many hospitals have adopted their own policies and procedures for recordings, choosing to be proactive and not what for their state’s legislature to act.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

One of the most challenging and heart-breaking areas of medical malpractice law is that involving alleged birth injuries causing a catastrophic outcome such as cerebral palsy, a permanent brain injury or other cognitive and motor deficiencies. It is not just the injuries to the child that are devastating, but also the impact that these physical injuries have on the parent(s), siblings and other loved ones.

One of the most common questions we receive from prospective clients with an injured newborn is “what kind of birth injuries give rise to medical malpractice cases?” This is a difficult question to answer and explain because parents are understandably upset over the deficits that their child is experiencing. In our office, we attempt to explain to our clients the difference between birth defects and true birth injuries. Birth defects are deficits caused by things such as an inherited genetic/chromosomal abnormality or perhaps a toxin that the mother was exposed to sometime during the pregnancy. Examples include Down syndrome, Trisomy 13 abnormalities, spina bifida, cleft palates and congenital heart abnormalities. Birth injuries, however, are those are caused by such circumstances as a doctor’s excessive use of force in attempting to deliver a child, the failure to properly identify signs of fetal distress on a fetal heart monitor, the failure to timely deliver a baby with identified signs of fetal distress or the failure to perform required testing in a timely fashion during the pregnancy. In many of these instances, the negligence results in what is known as “hypoxia” (a lack of oxygen to the brain) and it is this lack of oxygen that causes the permanent physical or cognitive injury to the baby.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Among the most common surgeries performed in the United States each year is the laporoscopic cholecystectomy (removal of the gallbladder). Indications for a cholecystectomy include inflammation of the gall bladder (cholecystitis), biliary colic, pancreatitis. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy has replaced the “open” cholecystectomy as the first-choice treatment for gallstones and inflammation of the gall bladder. In a laparoscopic procedure, the surgeon usually makes 3-4 small incisions in the abdomen to allow the insertion of operating ports through which surgical instruments and a video camera can be placed. The surgeon watches the monitor and performs the operation by manipulating the surgical instruments through the ports.

Typically, a surgeon begins the procedure by inflating the abdomen with carbon dioxide to create a working space. The gallbladder is identified, grasped and retracted. The gallbladder neck is then retracted to open up what is known as the Triangle of Calot or Triangle of Safety. The Triangle of Calot is the area bordered by the cystic duct, cystic artery and common hepatic duct. The cystic duct and cystic artery are identified and clips are placed on the ends of the cystic duct and cystic artery where they connect with the gallbladder and where those structures connect to the common bile duct. The surgeon then cuts the cystic duct and cystic artery between those clips, dissects/shells out the gallbladder from the liver’s edge and removes the gallbladder. Typically, the procedure takes an hour.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

A recent University of Michigan Medical study recently examined the disparity between the number of doctors who are disciplined or pay a malpractice claim from state to state within the United States. In many instances, the study concluded the percentage of physicians who are disciplined or pay to settle a malpractice claim is 4x higher in some states than in others. Concluding that there was unlikely to be a “4-fold difference in the behavior of doctors from state to state,” the study found that the “the reason for this difference lies in the wide variation between states’ regulations, procedures and resources for punishing physician wrongdoing.”

The study, published in the BMJ Quality and Safety Journal, relied on information/data from the National Practitioner Data Bank, which covers all 50 sates and the District of Columbia for the years 2000-2014. The data that was analyzed included information concerning actions taken by state medical boards against doctors for wide-range of wrongdoing, including settlements, fines, suspensions of medical licenses or periodic monitoring.

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 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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