Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 03/10/2008

A New Hampshire jury has awarded $1.75 million to a man who became blind after undergoing surgery to repair a broken leg. According to the lawsuit, the doctor failed to give the man blood to stabilize his condition following a car accident, causing nerve damage that blinded the man. Two other doctors who participated in the surgery were not found liable for the man’s injuries. Based upon the summary provided in the report, it was unclear as to what exactly caused the blindness.

The onset of blindness following surgery is, unfortunately, well documented. Two particular causes are well known. In the first circumstances, some patients experience a precipitous drop in their blood pressure while under anesthesia. This sudden drop in blood pressure, in turn, results in the deprivation of oxygen carrying red blood cells to the brain and the optic nerve (the nerve the connects the eye to the brain). If the deprivation of these oxygen carrying red blood cells persists for an extended period of time, cells within the nerves can die, resulting in blindness. In the second circumstance, a patient who is undergoing surgery may develop blindness if a piece of a blood clot, located elsewhere in the body, breaks off and travels toward the brain, lodging in a blood vessel that supplies the optic nerve. In such instances, the blood flow to the brain is interrupted and cell / nerve death can occur, causing blindness. In many instances, the clot can be identified on post-surgical imaging such as an MRI or CT scan with contrast of the brain. At STSW, our office has been involved in a similar case in which it was determined that the precipitous drop in blood pressure was the single cause of the subject blindness, a conclusion that could only be drawn after viewing the patient’s intraoperative blood pressure recordings that were made by the anesthesiologist.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 02/26/2008

As set forth recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association, if you are in the hospital and have cardiac arrest at night or on the weekend, you have a significantly lower chance of survival to discharge than if you had the arrest during day or evening times on weekdays.

Researchers suggest that patient, hospital, staffing, and response factors could come together to reduce the effectiveness of detecting and treating cardiac arrests at night. The findings are essential to inform decisions regarding hospital staffing, training, care delivery processes, and equipment – especially if in-hospital cardiac arrests are more frequent or survival is less likely on nights and weekends.

The study data consisted of 86,748 adult, in-hospital cardiac arrest events occurring at 507 medical/surgical hospitals from January 2000 to February 2007. All of the hospitals participate in the American Heart Association’s National Registry of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation. Researchers evaluated survival rates for adults with in-hospital cardiac arrest by time of day and day of week. They examined survival from cardiac arrest using the following definitions:

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 03/06/2008

On Monday, a Massachusetts jury ordered a surgeon to pay $14.5 million in damages to the husband of a woman who died following thyroid surgery. Jurors found that the doctor was responsible for the death and that another surgeon was negligent but not responsible for the death. The damages were comprised of past medical expenses, future loss of income and benefits and the pain and suffering associated with the death of his wife, along with the pain and suffering experienced by the woman prior to her death. It is believed that the verdict was among the highest in the state for this type of surgical procedure according to recent reports.

Complications following thyroid surgery include but are not limited to postoperative bleeding and swelling in the throat and neck area. Swelling can be particularly concerning because if it is caused by an unrecognized or rapidly expanding hematoma, it can cause airway compromise and asphyxiation. Following surgeries, imaging studies may be useful toward assessing whether neck swelling is caused by a hematoma or simply due to bruising around the area of surgery. Another common complication of thyroid surgery is known as current laryngeal nerve injury (RNL). This results in vocal fold paralysis – the inability to use one’s voice on a temporary or permanent basis. Because the laryngeal nerve is located in close proximity to the thyroid, surgeons must be particularly careful not to damage the nerve during surgery. When this injury occurs, hoarseness or breathiness typically manifests after the surgery in temporary injuries, whereas paralysis occurs immediately after the surgery. Injuries to the superior laryngeal nerve can also occur during the surgery, and is actually the most commonly injured nerve during thyroid surgery. Trauma to the nerve typically results in an inability to create a high-ptiched sound. Speech therapy is the only treatment that works. Yet another complication is known as hypoparathyroidism. Hypoparathyroidsm results from direct trauma to the parathyroid glands. Typically, patients who develop this type of injury following surgery require various types of therapies.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 03/03/2008

A woman with terminal breast cancer was awarded $12 million in damages from two doctors that allegedly failed to diagnose the disease until it was too late, a Pennsylvania jury ruled this past Wednesday. According to the lawsuit, the doctor missed several opportunities to report abnormalities that should have resulted in a diagnosis of breast cancer. Another doctor named as a defendant reached a confidential settlement prior to trial, according to an attorney for the woman.

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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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

An Indianapolis jury has awarded a woman and her daughter a $3.7 million judgment in a medical malpractice case arising from the girl’s troubled birth. The lawsuit alleged that the 6-year-old girl will live with cerebral palsy the rest of her life because of delays in the delivery that deprived her brain of oxygen. She was born via C-section in October 2001. Indiana limits medical malpractice awards, so the judgment on the three claims will be reduced to just under $2 million.

As a result of the wide ranging deficits that cerebral palsy can cause, lawyers tasked with representing parents whose baby has developed cerebral palsy following the negligence of a health care provider, must have the resources necessary to retain experts in various medical fields necessary to accurately and comprehensively address the baby’s needs for the rest of his/her lifetime. Those experts can include health care providers in the fields of neonatology; pediatrics; neurodevelopmentalists; neurologists; orthopedic specialists; opthamologists; physical medicine and rehabilitation specialists; vocational rehabilitation counselors; life care planners and economists. It is therefore important that you choose a lawyer who has established ties to health care providers in these fields so as to maximize any potential recovery in your case. Typically cases involving cerebral palsy take years to resolve given the careful attention to detail that must be paid to ascertaining the extent of the injuries experienced by the child as they reach various benchmarks for their respective age group.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

In February 2007, attorney Andrew Slutkin of the law firm of Silverman Thompson filed a medical malpractice case against Maryland Vascular Surgeon Dr. Juan Juanteguy and his former medical partner, Dr. Sohalia Ali, alleging that they failed to property perform a vascular surgical procedure known as a carotid endarterectomy upon a patient at Sinai Hospital, and then failed to properly manage her complications after surgery, causing the patient suffered a severe and permanent stroke. Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that Dr. Juanteguy did not use a patch to close the carotid artery after surgery, and as a result, the carotid artery was narrowed and subsequently re-stenosed (blocked) beginning on the afternoon of the first postoperative day. Plaintiff alleges that had a patch been used, the artery would not have become blocked and Ms. Chaney would not have had the stroke that caused severe cognitive and physical deficits which has forced her to rely on others to care for her. The lawsuit also alleges that Dr. Ali negligently failed to respond to complaints by certain family members of Ms. Chaney that she was exhibiting signs and symptoms consistent with a stroke; i.e., that she was confused, disoriented and neglecting her left side, and that Dr. Ali failed to respond to knowledge of Ms. Chaney’s confusion, disorientation and left sided complaints after being told of the same by another health care provider.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 02/19/2008

As reported last week in USA Today, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have released the names of the nation’s 131 worst nursing homes. The high-risk nursing homes, cited as ‘special focus facilities’ in the list, are required to receive at least twice as many state inspections as other facilities. The list released Tuesday showed that 52 of the nursing homes had shown no improvement since being cited for poor performance. The offenses typically involve unnecessary use of medication for elderly residents, or inadequate safeguards to protect residents such as those with Alzheimer’s from day-to-day hazards in the nursing home.

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: 02/19/2008

As reported in the New York Times last week, a major maker of heparin, a blood thinner used widely in surgery and dialysis, has stopped making it after hundreds of patients reported severe allergic reactions to the drug, which is made from pig intestines. At least four people died. Although alternatives exist, doctors warned of serious consequences if heparin became truly scarce. Public health officials first noticed a problem late last year in four children undergoing dialysis at a hospital in Missouri. Within minutes of being injected with heparin, the children experienced serious allergic reactions. As officials investigated, they found a total of 350 reports of patients’ experiencing problems after being injected with large doses of heparin made by Baxter Healthcare. Baxter supplies about half the nation’s heparin. Most of the cases were reported in late December or January and 40 percent were deemed serious. Allergic reactions included difficulty breathing, nausea, vomiting, excessive sweating and rapidly falling blood pressure that in some cases led to life-threatening shock. 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

As reported in the The Times this week, on Thursday, an Illinois jury awarded a man nearly $24 million in medical malpractice case brought against a doctor and nurse practitioner following complications suffered while having a kidney stone removed from his ureter. According to court records, the plaintiff entered St. Mary’s Hospital in Streator, Illinois in November 2001 for surgery involving a kidney stone in his ureter. During surgery, he underwent cardiac arrest and the flow of oxygen to his brain was interrupted. As a result of the oxygen interruption and subsequent stroke, the man lost most of his fine motor skills and suffers from spastic movement, severe double vision and slow, slurred speech, making him difficult to understand. He is married and has two children. Before the surgery, he worked for a phone company.

At STSW, our lawyers routinely handle medical malpractice / medical negligence cases in which patients have experienced cerebral hypoxia (the lost or reduced supply of oxygen to the brain) as the result of the administration of anesthesia or cardiac arrest. Generally speaking cases of cerebral hypoxia are placed into four categories: diffuse cerebral hypoxia (moderate impairment of the brain resulting from low oxygen levels in the blood), cerebral infarction, focal cerebral ischemia (often referred to as a stroke that occurs in a very localized area of the brain) and global cerebral ischemia (total stoppage of blood flow to the brain). When someone experiences a total deprivation of oxygen to the brain it is called anoxia. Often times physicians refer to patients as having suffered an anoxic brain injury. Anoxia often results from hypoxia (reduced oxygen availability). Another common term that is often heard, and which is associated with hypoxia is a TIA (transient ischemic attack). A TIA is essentially a mini stroke. The American Heart Association defines a TIA as a transient episode of neurologic dysfunction caused by a focal brain, spinal cord or retinal ischemia (reduced blood flow), without acute infarction. The symptoms associated with a TIA can resolve within a few minutes unlike a full blown stroke. TIAs are caused by the same things as strokes — disruption of cerebral blood flow. Another common term that is often heard is a “silent stroke”. A silent stroke is a stroke that does not manifest itself with any noticeable symptoms; i.e., there is no paralysis, no slurring of speech, etc. Essentially, the person has suffered a stroke but even they may not know it. While seemingly innocuous, however, silent strokes still cause damage to the brain due to the reduced blood flow to the brain and place the person at a greater risk of having a major stroke at some point in the future. Younger adults and women appear to be more at risk for silent strokes than other kinds of strokes according to the American Heart Association.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 02/18/2008

A Pennsylvania jury has ordered a doctor to pay approximately $4 million after finding that he was negligent for failing to diagnose a woman’s breast cancer. The lawsuit alleged that Dr. Joseph M. Skutches failed to pursue a traditional course of treatment after a woman complained to him about a painful lump in her breast.

If you or a loved one have ever received a diagnosis of cancer, you know that it is a life altering event. 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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