Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

As first reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last month, a Superior Court judge struck down the cap on damage awards in medical malpractice cases as unconsitutional. If upheld on appeal, this holding could undercut a major component of Georgia’s tort reform laws. Superior Court Judge Marvin Arrington wrote in an order that the legislative cap of $350,000 for noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering was unconstitutional because it gave special protections to the medical profession. This meant people injured by doctors had less protection than those injured by, say, a manufacturer’s product. The legislature approved the $350,000 cap in 2005 as part of a civil-justice tort reform law over the opposition of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association and consumer groups. Doctors and hospitals said the law was needed to hold down malpractice-insurance premiums. In reaction to Arrington’s ruling, the Medical Association of Georgia said tort reform had made doctors’ services, such as obstetrical and general surgery, more accessible because of reduced insurance premiums. In 2006, the Georgia Supreme Court stuck down another provision of tort reform when it ruled that defendants couldn’t decide in which county their medical-malpractice case was tried. When the malpractice cap was enacted, trial lawyers complained its real effect was to reduce the incentive for doctors, hospitals and insurers to negotiate substantial settlements because they wouldn’t face the threat of large verdicts for pain and suffering and other noneconomic damages, which are the most subjective part of jury awards. As set forth in the opinion, Arrington opined that “the statute effectively puts substantial limitations on the rights of the poor and middle class to recovery while leaving the right to virtually unlimited recoveries unimpeded for the wealthy.”

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

As reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer last month, an ongoing case in federal court in Newark, New Jersey highlights the hidden dangers of organ transplants in the United States, a little known and/or reported danger, but one that is reported in the medical literature. In 2005, Tony Grier, 43, was dying from a rare lung disease when he received two donor lungs from a 31 year old woman who died in a car accident. Grier died six months later after it was discovered that the transplanted lungs had lung cancer. Lawyers for Mr. Grier’s estate contend the hospital should have known the lungs were cancerous because the donor had smoked for 16 years. Defendants in the suit are the University of Pennsylvania Health System, the hospital and surgeons who performed the transplant and evaluated the lungs, and Lancaster General Hospital, where they were harvested. The suit alleges that the defendants failed to perform necessary tests that would have detected cancer, and also failed to find it after the transplant. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a national nonprofit that was established by Congress in 1984 to administer the nation’s transplantation network, lung cancer in a transplanted organ is very rare. Data from the UNOS shows that cancer, of any kind, was transmitted to 47 organ recipients between 1994 and 2006. Lung transplant recipients accounted for eight of those cases. In short, despite all of the efforts being made by health care providers to secure a safe organ for transplantation, transmission of malignancy in a donor organ and/or other diseases, can happen. As a result, donor registries continue to seek to improve their abilities to obtain accurate medical information from donor patients while the organ donee facilities simultaneously seek more accessibility to personal data and information regarding the donating parties so as to avoid this possibility.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

As was reported by the Associated Press, the birth of Susan Anne Catherine Torres, delivered by a brain-dead mother who was kept on life support to sustain the pregnancy, made medical history less than three years ago. A recently filed malpractice lawsuit is now raising legal questions about the degree to which a doctor’s obligations in treating a pregnant woman also extend to her unborn fetus. In the lawsuit, Jason Torres, the father of the Susan Anne and husband of the brain-dead mother, Susan Torres, seeks damages against the ER physician who treated his wife in 2005. The lawsuit holds the ER physician responsible not only for the mother’s death, but also the death of the baby, who died 5 weeks after delivery due to complications from a premature delivery.

In the lawsuit, Mr. Torres alleges that the ER doctor dismissed as “morning sickness” symptoms that indicated a more serious problem. Those symptoms included memory lapses–witnessed by a nurse–in which Susan Michelle Torres couldn’t recognize her husband when she was sitting next to him. The Complaint alleges that further tests would have revealed bleeding on the brain. After being discharged from the hospital, Ms. Torres fell into a coma from a brain hemorrhage caused by melanoma. At the time, she was about 14 weeks pregnant. Mr. Torres made the decision to keep his wife on life support, with the hope that the baby could develop to the point of viability. Doctors were able to keep the mother on life support for 3 months, long enough for the fetus to become viable. Delivery occurred 13 weeks prematurely. The next day the mother was taken off life support and died.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

As was first reported in the Las Vegas Sun, a lawsuit was settled last month which claimed that a doctor missed a man’s cancer during a hastily performed colonoscopy. Kevin Rexford, a 46-year-old pharmacist, said the defendant, one of the clinic’s owners, missed an obvious colon cancer diagnosis three years ago. The alleged failure allowed the cancer to spread throughout his body and he now has only about a 10 percent chance of living five more years. Rexford is married with two young children, a fact that makes the failed diagnosis all the more difficult to reconcile. A source familiar with the case said the settlement was in the range of $2 million, the maximum amount of insurance carried by the doctor and his affiliated medical practice. Experts who were paid to review the case on Rexford’s behalf said the defendant only took only three minutes – half the minimum recommended time – to examine Rexford’s colon for cancer during a Jan. 28, 2005, procedure. His missed diagnosis allowed the cancer to progress to an incurable stage, the experts said.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Sepsis – the body’s ultimate response to a bacterial infection — is characterized by severe reaction of the body’s organs to the foreign bacteria and/or death. Sepsis is also referred to as systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS). Although sepsis often results from the widespread invasion of bacteria into a patient’s bloodstream, this invasion is not essential for the development of severe sepsis since local infection/inflammation can also cause distant organ dysfunction and blood pressure irregularities. Some of the common places in the body where an infection might start include the skin (celluitis), the lungs (bacterial pneumonia), liver, gall bladder, lining of the brain (meningitis), the bloodstream, the bones, the bowel, or the kidneys. For hospitalized patients, common sources of infections include bedsores (decubitus ulcers), surgical drains, intravenous lines, or surgical wounds. Unfortunately, bacteria live and breed in hospitalized settings, and thus, many healthy people who have suffered an injury requiring a drain, or IV lines or open ports into their blood stream often contract an infection that turns into sepsis.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 04/23/2008

Maryland personal injury lawyers are preparing for a potential class action law suit against a Maryland firm which owns the majority of Wisconsin based Scientific Protein Laboratories, Ltd., a Wisconsin-based company.

According to The Daily Record, the FDA sent Scientific Protein Laboratories a warning letter that its plant in China is believed to be producing the contaminated heparin. American Capital Strategies, located in Bethesda Maryland, owns 90% of the Wisconsin-based company. A Maryland class action law suit may be ripe against the Maryland based company based on deaths and injuries associated with the contaminated heparin. Maryland personal injury lawyers Silverman Thompson have served as local counsel for a major class action in the past and are currently accepting new clients who have been injured by the tainted heparin.

Heparin is used in dialysis and is also used to prevent clotting in catheters, which 25 percent of dialysis patients have to use for treatment. The drug is also commonly used in heart bypass surgery. As an anticoagulant, Heparin can be used to reduced the risk of blood clots before surgery.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 04/22/2008

According to the FDA, as many as 81 deaths in the United States and Germany have been linked to a man-made chemical ingredient of heparin called oversulfated condroitin sulfate (OSCS). Hundreds more may have been victims of adverse reactions to the tainted drug. In Maryland, health officials are monitoring the situation. The Maryland medical malpractice lawyers at Silverman Thompson will be evaluating contaminated heparin injuries for possible law suites arising from the negligence. Symptoms for those affected include difficulty breathing, nausea or vomiting, falling blood pressure, excessive sweating and life-threatening shock. Those who are using heparin and suffer these types of symptoms may be entitled to reimbursement for their medical expenses and additional damages from the drug companies.

Heparin is used in dialysis and is also used to prevent clotting in catheters, which 25 percent of dialysis patients have to use for treatment. The drug is also commonly used in heart bypass surgery. As an anticoagulant, Heparin can be used to reduced the risk of blood clots before surgery.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 04/16/2008 (subsequent reports in 2010 contradict this article)

According to U.S. regulators’ recent reports, the respiratory medicine Spiriva HandiHaler may increase the risk of stroke. As noted on Bloomberg.com, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a notice indicating that Spiriva was associated with two more cases of stroke in every 1,000 patients treated for one year compared with a placebo medicine in a pooled analysis of 13,500 patients. Spiriva is marketed by Boehringer, the world’s largest family owned drugmaker with Pfizer Inc., as a once-a-day inhaled treatment for breathing difficulty caused by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The Ingelheim, Germany-based company is assessing the long-term effects of the drug in a four- year study that is expected to report results in June, the FDA said. At that point, the FDA will review the report and make conclusions and recommendations to the public.

Subsequent to the release of these reports, in 2010, the FDA reversed its course, stating that the available data did not support an association between the Handihaler and increased risk of adverse events, i.e., stroke / heart attack. In fact, some recent studies have suggested that Spiriva might actually lower patients’ risk of heart problems and death. This is certainly good news for the medication’s manufacturers and product distributors given the world wide usage of the drug.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 04/08/2008

A Florida jury has ordered a hospital and gynecologist to pay $30 million for negligence that led to a 17-year-old boy’s physical and mental disabilities, including cerebral palsy. The jurors awarded $24 million in compensatory damages and $6 million in non-economic damages against Westside Regional Medical Center and Dr. Mark Grenitz. The verdict may be the largest ever awarded in a Broward County medical malpractice case.

Cerebral palsy is a complex medical condition that ranges in severity from mild to severe. Typically, those afflicted with cerebral palsy have an inability to control their motor function; i.e., they lack adequate muscle control and coordination. Common symptoms that can lead to a diagnosis of cerebral palsy include: involuntary movements of limbs; muscle spasticity (tightness), inability to walk properly (gait); seizures, breathing problems or difficulty swallowing; bladder and bowel continence issues; learning disabilities, and the impairment of one or more senses (sight, hearing, etc.). More severe cases may also result in a child having difficulty speaking.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 03/19/2008

A New Jersey jury has awarded more than $19 million in a medical malpractice case to a 10 year old boy who was disabled from birth. The money will allow the boy’s mother to pay for his care for the rest of his life, equip their home to accommodate his special needs and purchase a wheelchair-accessible van for his transportation. According to thesuit, the doctor initially misdiagnosed the mother, who was 30 weeks pregnant at the time, after she called him one evening complaining of abdominal pain. The doctor allegedly delayed in determining that the mother was hemorrhaging and had lost a massive amount of blood. The child eventually was delivered, had to be resuscitated and spent four months in intensive care. He suffers from severe brain damage, cerebral palsy and is legally blind.

Cerebral palsy is a complex medical condition that ranges in severity from mild to severe. Typically, those afflicted with cerebral palsy have an inability to control their motor function; i.e., they lack adequate muscle control and coordination. Common symptoms that can lead to a diagnosis of cerebral palsy include: involuntary movements of limbs; muscle spasticity (tightness), inability to walk properly (gait); seizures, breathing problems or difficulty swallowing; bladder and bowel continence issues; learning disabilities, and the impairment of one or more senses (sight, hearing, etc.). More severe cases may also result in a child having difficulty speaking.

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