Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 09/17/2008

As was reported in numerous newspapers around the country this week, the acting Surgeon General, Dr. Steven Galson, has announced a new campaign to raise the awareness of a serious medical problem in the United States that far too often goes undiagnosed: blood clots that initially present as simple leg pain. These blood clots are often referred to as a “deep vein thrombosis” or DVT. They form in large veins, usually in the leg or groin and can quickly kill if the clot moves up to the lungs. In such instances the clots are referred to as a pulmonary embolism or PE. The goals of the recently announced campaign are to get both patients and doctors to recognize the emergency in time. It is estimated that approximately 500,000 people a year get these clots and 1/5 of them die. Identified risk factors and triggers for these clots are: a recent surgery or broken bone; fall or car crash; being immobile for long periods of time; taking of birth control or menopause hormones. People within this class have a higher risk of developing a clot. In addition, some individuals are genetically predisposed to developing a clot. Symptoms of an existing clot include: swelling, pain (especially in the calf), a warm or red spot on the leg, shortness of breath or pain when breathing deeply. Although the campaign takes aim at an ill-informed society, it appears many physicians are also failing to recognize and treat the warning signs. In fact, some studies suggest that up to 1/3 of patients in hospitals who need protective blood thinners to prevent the development of a clot are not getting them. Moreover, many physicians are to recognize the basic signs and symptoms of these clots, confusing the diagnosis with muscular pains and/or other seemingly harmless medical issues.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 09/17/2008

As was initially reported by Reuters, a recent study of data from nearly 1,300 U.S. hospitals has revealed that less than half routinely meet a key component for care of colon cancer patients — checking a suitable number of lymph nodes following surgery to determine if the cancer has spread to other areas of the body. Medical literature and leading medical organizations say that physicians should examine at least 12 lymph nodes in patients who have had colon surgery to remove cancerous tumors to determine whether the colon cancer has metastasized. Such information is critical to physicians’ efforts to accurately diagnose the stage and/or severity of the caner, guide future treatment, and determine whether a patient may be a candidate for chemotherapy. The study, which reviewed hospital data from patients who had undergone surgery to remove colon cancer in 2004 and 2005, found that only 38% of the hospitals in fact checked at least 12 lymph notes. According to physicians who participated in the study, checking too few lymph notes may give a false impression that the cancer has not spread to other areas of the body.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 07/23/2008

As was first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution several months ago, a Gwinnett County jury recently awarded $5 million dollars to the family of a new mother who drowned in a bathtub at a local hospital. The new mother, who was being treated for post-partum high blood pressure, apparently collapsed in the bathtub while taking a shower. Her mother later found her, but she died the next day. In the lawsuit, the family alleged that video footage from outside the decedent’s room confirmed that no nurses or other health care providers entered her room to check on her for an extended period of time. Moreover, the evidence uncovered during the discovery phase suggested that the hospital faced a critical shortage of nurses and other staff that should have been on duty so as to prevent this catastrophic result.

Unfortunately, given nursing shortages and the escalating number of patients in U.S. hospitals, incidents of hospital neglect / hospital abuse / hospital negligence are becoming all too common as our cases of nursing home neglect. Nursing home malpractice cases involving patient neglect are often very difficult for plaintiff’s attorneys. Whereas in typical personal injury type cases jurors are asked to focus on things such as medical expenses, lost wages and lasting results from injuries, these things are often absent in nursing home cases. As a result, attorneys representing injured nursing home patients must focus on developing themes that focus on the nursing home’s wrong doing such as: that the nursing home puts profits over people; that the facility was understaffed and the home knew it; that the staff were not adequately trained; and that the case is not just about 1 patient but about a larger systemic problem at the facility. In short, attorneys often focus on the institutional negligence as opposed to the negligence of lower level employees.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 07/23/2008

As was reported in the New York Times yesterday, the president of a swimming pool company was charged with second-degree manslaughter following an accident last year in which a 6 year old boy drowned in Connecticut after his arm became trapped in the pool’s suction drain. Police have charged the builder with recklessly causing the death of the boy by failing to ensure that his company installed mandated safety devices in the pool that would have prevented the death. According to the accident investigation, the boy drowned after his arm became stuck in an intake valve in the deep end of an in-ground pool. The boy’s parents desperately attempted to free their son’s arm from the drain but were unsuccessful due to the strong suction of the pump. Ultimately, the boy’s mother ran and shut off power to the house (including the drain pump) and they were able to to free their son and perform CPR, but it was too late. The lawsuit alleges that the pool fell well short of the minimum safety standards for pools. C

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 07/10/2008

A $1.25 million jury award was handed down in a Tennessee medical malpractice / medical negligence / medical error case involving the failure of several health care providers to check a 34 year old dialysis patient’s potassium levels prior to discharge from an emergency room. The patient suffered from end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis. A day after he missed a dialysis session due to a hospital emergency room visit, the patient’s mother called the patient’s treating nephrologist and inquired whether it would be necessary to make up the missed session and whether the patient need to have his potassium level checked. The nephrologist told the patient’s mother that the patient could wait until the next day. He died that evening following a heart stoppage resulting from hyperkalemia – excessive potassium in the blood. The patient’s mother sued the nephrologist, an emergency room physician, the hospital, a nurse and unknown hospital employee, alleging they failed to communicate with with each other negligently allowed the patient to leave the hospital without checking his potassium level after the missed dialysis session. In fact, it was discovered that a proper blood test had been ordered in the emergency room, but that an unknown hospital employee had cancelled it.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 07/09/2008

Recently, in Ohio, the family of a 38 year old woman who died of a pulmonary embolus shortly after being admitted to the hospital, settled a wrongful death lawsuit against the doctor for 5.85 million dollars. The decedent had suffered from leg pain and shortness of breath for several days. She consulted an internist who admitted her to the hospital. Several hours later, the doctor ordered various tests to rule out or diagnose hypercoagulability. These results were extremely elevated. Shortly thereafter, the woman was found unresponsive in her hospital bed. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a pulmonary embolism. The estate of the woman sued the internist, alleging a failure to timely treat the pulmonary embolism, arguing that the doctor should have immediately ordered a STAT chest CT scan, ordered an ultrasound following admission and initiated heparain therapy. The defendants argued that the heparin would not have prevented the death because the clot was old and would not have been dissolved by the drug. After testimony from the experts, the parties reached settlement in the amount stated above.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 07/09/2008

Recently, the family of a 39 year old Michigan construction worker who worked as a ditch digger and pipe layer received a 9 million dollar jury award in a medical malpractice/negligence lawsuit following the man’s death from a fungal infection. The man, who took medicine for rheumatoid arthritis (which resulted in a compromised immune system) began suffering from a fever of unknown origin. After 10 days, he was admitted to a hospital under the care of two internal medicine doctors and an infectious disease specialist. For nine days, he underwent tests, including a general fungal test. He subsequently became critically ill and died. The cause of death was ultimately determined to be disseminated histoplasmosis, a fungal infection contracted from the soil. Because of the man’s daily contact with the soil, the family argued that the defendant doctors should have performed a biopsy or urine test to timely rule out histoplasmosis while he was hospitalized. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury found the health care providers negligent awarded the family $9 million dollars.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 06/23/2008

As initially reported in the Cincinnati Enquirer, an Ohio woman whose baby was stuck in her birth canal for 13½ hours won $22.6 million last month in a medical malpractice lawsuit. A Hamilton County jury – which heard five weeks of testimony and deliberated for 3½ days – found physician and her practice group negligent in the case. Jurors also found that the doctor and her group knew or should have known their actions would have resulted in brain injuries during the Sept. 4, 1997, birth of the woman’s child. According to the Plaintiff’s attorney, the evidence was very compelling that this baby was not going to fit through the birth canal due to her size of over nine pounds. In addition, the mother was known to have a narrow pelvic arch. In addition to being a big baby in a small canal, the baby’s injuries also were allegedly caused because medical workers continued to give the mother drugs to make the uterus contract, hoping to expel the baby. The result was a uterus contracting on the baby’s stuck head, causing brain damage. Ultimately, the baby was delivered by Caesarian section. Now 11, the baby is a spastic quadriplegic. The baby suffered brain damage that will affect her for life because her head was squeezed for so long. She can walk short distances but needs a walker. She can see but because the part of her brain that processes vision was damaged, her brain can’t properly interpret what her eyes see. She has problems using her hands, and she is mildly retarded. She also suffers from signs and symptoms consistent with cerebral palsy.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 06/23/2008

At Silverman Thompson, we are well known in the Baltimore-Washington area for successfully handling many medical malpractice (medical negligence) cases. Our lawyers routinely return verdicts for our clients that are among the highest in the state of Maryland. These verdicts regularly exceed a million dollars and more often than not are in the multi-million dollar range. Our lawyers handle these cases typically on a contingent fee basis, meaning we lay out the expenses in advance and our clients are only responsible for repaying those expenses and the attorneys’ fees if we are successful for them by way of settlement, trial or on appeal.

While the care is generally good at area hospitals, and in this region of the country in general, patients and their loved ones need to watch out for themselves or loved ones when they are treated at or admitted to these hospitals. Unfortunately, our office has handled medical malpractice / negligence cases against almost every hospital in the Baltimore-Washington area, including Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins Bayview, University of Maryland Medical Center, Maryland General Hospital, Harbor Hospital, Mercy Medical Center, Sinai Hospital, Northwest Hospital, Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC), Franklin Square Hospital, Howard County General Hospital, Anne Arundel Medial Center, Baltimore Washington Medical Center, Upper Chesapeake Medical Center, Harford Memorial Hospital, Frederick Memorial Hospital, Washington Adventist Hospital, and Shady Grove Adventist Hospital. Again, while the care at these hospitals is generally good, there continue to be instances of substantial medical negligence that result in patients being severely and permanently injured. In rarer cases, the medical negligence tragically leads to the death of a patient. As a result, our office recommends that each time you or a loved one is treated at a hospital, you establish a relationship with the doctors and nurses who will be caring for you or the loved one, ask as many questions as you feel are necessary and be present as much as possible to oversee what is going on. It is only through an open dialogue with these health care providers that you will receive the necessary information to make informed decisions about your or your loved ones’ health.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 06/03/2008

As first reported in the Tuscon Citizen last month, a jury awarded a Tucson family $6 million in a lawsuit brought after an ailing 81-year-old relative died of a morphine overdose. According to the article, Mary Culpepper and two other relatives last month were awarded $2 million each, with the cost to be paid 90 percent by operators of a nursing home, Manor Care Health Services, and 10 percent to be paid by Tucson Medical Center. Culpepper sued Manor Care, TMC, a doctor, nurse and pharmacy over the Dec. 8, 2003, death of her mother, Sylvia Culpepper. She was admitted to TMC on Dec. 2, 2003, suffering from sciatica, a painful nerve condition. On Dec. 4, 2003, she was prescribed 15 milligrams of morphine twice a day. Two days later, her dosage increased to 30 milligrams, twice a day. When Culpepper was transferred from TMC to Manor Care, prescription orders contained both dosages. According to the lawsuit, the Manor Care staff failed to note the discrepancy in the prescriptions and gave her both dosages, both twice a day. An autopsy determined that Culpepper died of acute morphine intoxication.

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