Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

As has been recently published in newspapers and reported on by the various news agencies, it has been alleged that hundreds and hundreds of unnecessary cardiac stent surgeries were performed by Dr. Mark Midei at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Maryland. These allegations are giving rise to medical malpractice claims by the recipients of the stent implants that are alleged not to have been needed in the first place. Silverman Thompson’s attorneys are actively investigating and pursuing these claims. To date, there have been seven articles about this fiasco in the Baltimore Sun, consisting of the following:

• 1/15/10 Patients learn they might have unneeded stents.
• 1/22/10 Heart-stent popularity is costly in many ways.
• 1/23/10 Suit alleges heart implant unnecessary.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Two Montana nursing homes recently reached a mid-trial settlement in a wrongful death case arising out of allegations that nurses and staff at the nursing home were negligent in the provision of health care to 87-year-old Ralph Seewald. The lawsuit, brought following Mr. Seewald’s November 2005 death from an infection, alleged that nurses failed to properly monitor and support Mr. Seewald during a transfer from his wheelchair, omissions that led to him falling and breaking his neck. As a result of this incident, Mr. Seewald was forced to be bedridden for a period of months. During this time, however, nursing staff negligently permitted him to develop severe pressure ulcers/sores that gradually worsened. Ultimately, the untreated pressure ulcers caused Mr. Seewald to develop a fatal case of gangrene (a blood infection). In the lawsuit, Mr. Seewald’s surviving family members sought damages associated with his pain suffering, mental anguish, emotional distress, medical and funeral expenses and loss of companionship.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Earlier this month, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down a medical malpractice statute that had limited the amount of money a victim of medical malpractice could recover for pain and suffering from a hospital or health care provider. The 2005 law had created a cap of $1,000,000 on any award for pain and suffering against a hospital and $500,000 on any award for pain and suffering against an individual health care provider. As in Maryland, proponents of the legislation (doctors and insurance companies) had argued that caps on monetary damages were the only and best way to curb rising health care insurance costs/premiums. In striking down the law, the Illinois Supreme Court found that the law violated the State’s separation of powers clause between branches of government by permitting the legislature to interfere with the jury’s right to determine and award damages.

In Maryland, a similar cap on non-economic damages exists. To date, efforts to have the cap overturned have been unsuccessful despite similar arguments to those made in Illinois being raised.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Last week, two Maryland senators re-introduced a bill aimed at excluding any apology from a health care provider to a patient following the rendering of care in a subsequent medical negligence/malpractice trial. Presently, in Maryland, if a health care provider extends an apology for an adverse result or expresses regret, those statements may not be used against the health care provider in a civil trial, with one exception. That exception is triggered if, in making the apology or statement of regret, the health care provider also admits wrongdoing or negligent care whether it is during a procedure or during the care of a particular patient. In such a circumstance, a patient may use that statement of guilt against the physician of a subsequent trial. The bill proposed by the two Maryland senators seeks to eliminate that exception.

Two competing interests are at heart in the debate over this proposed bill. On the one hand, physicians argue that if open communication between the physician and patient is encouraged; i.e., allow the doctor to say he made a mistake, the end result will be fewer lawsuits and legal fees. In fact, many of our clients often state that if physicians had only apologized for what had happened during a particular procedure or during the care of a loved one, they would not have felt compelled to bring a lawsuit against the doctor. On the other hand, advocates for patients argue that the current law does more than enough to protect health care providers and insulate them from liability for their humanistic response to an medical error; i.e., a statement of regret or apology. Patient’s advocates argue that doctor’s should be truthful with their patients regardless of a bad outcome or the potential for liability, and that a law further shielding health care providers from liability for these statements unfairly prejudices the injured patient even further.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

An Arizona man and his wife were recently awarded $16.5 million against a neurosurgeon who negligently failed to timely treat the man for a fractured spine following an ATV accident. The man, Trent Hughes, suffered a fractured spine after falling from the ATV, an injury that necessitated that he be airlifted to Desert Regional Medical Center. Despite this injury, the neurosurgeon on call, Christopher Pham, M.D., failed to see Mr. Hughes that day, and after seeing and recognizing the extent of his injuries, failed to operate on Mr. Hughes for 2 days. As a result of this negligence, Mr. Hughes became paralyzed from the waist down. Although it was established during trial that Dr. Pham was present at the hospital when Mr. Hughes arrived via airlift, he failed to adequately explain his whereabouts or why there was a delay in evaluation/surgery. As part of the jury’s award, the Hughes were awarded monetary sums for past and future lost wages, past and future medical expenses and pain and suffering.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 08/03/2009

On July 27, 2009, the landscape of Maryland’s informed consent doctrine was changed in favor of Plaintiffs when Maryland highest court, the Court of Appeals decided the case of McQuitty v. Spangler. In McQuitty, a mother who had been hospitalized for a partial-placental abruption (premature separation of the placenta from the wall of the uterus that carries with it the risk of injury to the unborn child) alleged that her doctor failed to inform her of the risk and available alternatives related to this change in her pregnancy. As a result, the mother was forced to choose between two options: allow the pregnancy to go forward with the known risks or deliver the baby early. At trial, the mother argued that the doctor breached Maryland’s informed consent doctrine by failing to disclose to her material facts about the degree of placental separation, facts upon which a reasonable person in her position could have, or would have, made a different decision. At the first trial, the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the question of informed consent. Two years later, in a second trial, the jury awarded the mother/family over $13 million. The defendant doctor appealed. Maryland’s intermediate appellate court, the Court of Special Appeals, held that Maryland’s doctrine of informed consent applied only to affirmative violations of the patient’s physical integrity, i.e., there has to have been treatment that was engaged in by the doctor that would not have been in order to bring an informed consent claim. In reaching this decision, the Court of Special Appeals relied upon the long-standing case of Reed v. Campagnolo, 3323 Md. 226, 630 A.2d 1145 (1993), in which the court concluded that lack of informed consent is similar to criminal battery, requiring an “affirmative violation of the patient’s physical integrity.” This decision was appealed to the Court of Appeals by the McQuitty family. In a landmark decision, the Court of Appeals concluded that the Reed case was erroneous and found that an informed consent lawsuit in Maryland can be properly maintained in circumstances in which a doctor withholds material information about a proposed course of treatment that causes the patient to make a decision about that treatment that he or she would not have made if the withheld information had been disclosed in the first instance.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

As was reported recently in the New York times, a paralyzed father of three recently was awarded 19.2 million dollars in a negligence suit against Montefiore Medical Center in New York for its doctors’ failure to timely treat a spinal abscess that led to permanent paralysis. Wilfredo Figueroa, 58, presented to the Montefiore Medical Center on September 22, 2004 with a chief complaint of severe back pain. Despite this complaint, plaintiff alleged that health care providers failed to order and take a diagnostic MRI or CT scan until nearly 2 weeks after his admission, and well after irreversible damage had already been done. As a result of this negligence, plaintiff alleged that Mr. Figueroa suffered paralysis from the chest down and will incur a lifetime of medical expenses, pain, suffering and emotional distress.

Spinal cord abscesses are a rare condition caused when inured tissue becomes infected. White blood cells rush to the area of infection to help fight off the infection and begin to fill up the damaged tissue, causing pus to build up. Risk factors for the development of a spinal cord abscess include long term use of blood thinners, a weak immune system such as can be found in older or sick individuals, Crohn’s disease or a ruptured gallbladder. Some of the more common symptoms associated with spinal cord abscesses include a sudden onset of pain, sharp radiating pain into the extremities, sudden and progressive weakness, numbness / tingling of the skin or a fever. Physicians who suspect spinal abscess should order numerous tests to confirm the same, including but not limited to a complete blood count (CBC), and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), a CT scan of the spinal cord, an MRI of the spinal cord or a lumbar puncture to remove a sample of the cerebrospinal fluid and test for infection.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 01/21/2009

An Illinois mother recently settled a medical malpractice case against a hospital, their family practitioner and a nurse for $15,350,000 after the family practitioner attempted 18 times, unsuccessfully, to deliver her child using a vacuum extractor. During the course of these unsuccessful attempts, the baby became distressed and ultimately an emergency cesarean section was required to deliver the boy. Following delivery, the boy was diagnosed with severe cerebral palsy and mental retardation. He requires the use of a wheel chair as well. In the lawsuit, the mother alleged that the family doctor negligently caused brain damage to the child through his repeated use of the extractor; that a nurse who was present failed to properly serve her role as a patient advocate by insisting that the physician stop using the vacuum extractor; and that the hospital failed to exercise reasonable care in evaluating the doctor’s competency to perform safe vacuum deliveries at the hospital.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 11/18/2008

An Indiana jury recently awarded $1 million dollars to the husband of a woman who died after physicians failed to timely determine to the source of her bleeding. The 55 year old woman was hospitalized in the ICU for treatment of breathing difficulties. Upon extubation, a nurse noticed bleeding coming from her mouth. The woman’s blood pressure began dropping as a result of the ongoing bleeding, ultimately causing hypovolemic shock. Physicians then attempted to urgently place a catheter in her jugular vein, but unfortunately, in the process, punctured her lung, causing it to collapse. The patient subsequently was then required to be placed back on a ventilator where she developed pneumonia and died. Plaintiff alleged that the source of the bleeding was a partial denture that cut into his wife’s throat and that the physicians could have discovered this by merely checking the patient’s mouth. The partial denture was also apparent on an x-ray taken before the bleeding began, something the physician failed to appreciate.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 10/10/2008

The family of a New York woman recently settled a case arising out of a radiologist’s failure to properly read and interpret a mammogram. The decedent, a 46 year old woman with a husband and two children, underwent a routine mammogram which was read as normal. A few months later, the woman detected a lump in her breast and was referred for a second mammogram. The second mammogram was interpreted as normal by a radiologist. Several months after that, however, the breast became inflamed and doctors performed a biopsy. The biopsy revealed Stage III breast cancer that had metastasized/spread to three quarters of her lymph nodes. A mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation were all unsuccessful and the woman died of her cancer 20 months after the diagnosis. The case ultimately settled for approximately 3 million dollars.

As with most illnesses, early diagnosis of cancer is the best ammunition that a patient has toward defeating the disease. If, however, the cancer was missed by physicians for an appreciable amount of time or simply not timely diagnosed, a patient can face dire consequences. Sadly, these delays in diagnosis can result in more invasive treatment, extended physical and emotional heartache and even death. Most cancers are either graded or staged in terms of their severity. The lower the grade or stage (i.e., the earlier the diagnosis), the better a patient’s chances are of survival. Conversely, the higher the grade or stage, the worse a patient’s chances are of survival. Importantly, a delay in diagnosis can increase the likelihood that the tumor will metastasize (spread) to the lungs, thereby significantly decreasing a person’s chances of survival. In Maryland, failure to diagnose cases can only be pursued if the negligence caused the patient’s cancer to progress from a stage in which the patient had a probability of surviving the cancer if he or she received proper treatment to a circumstance in which they now face a probability of death due to the growth / spread of the cancer inside the body.

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