Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 02/12/2008

As reported in the Daily Pennsylvanian, the mother of a man who died after he received the cancerous lungs of a smoker during a transplant has filed a medical malpractice / medical negligence / wrongful death lawsuit against the Pennsylvania hospital that performed the procedure. In the lawsuit, Emma Grier claims that doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania knowingly misrepresented the identity of the lung donor; i.e., they knew that the lung donor was a smoker who had been diagnosed with lung cancer prior to his death. The complaint also names the doctor who determined the lungs to be suitable for transplant and the organ donation program that provided the lungs. At its core, the allegations seemingly suggested that the defendants were received benefits for the lung transplant procedure and therefore there were certain motivations for ensuring that the procedure went forward despite the revelation of the cancerous lung.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 02/12/2008

The blood-clot preventing drug Plavix has been linked to an increased risk of heart attack or death in patients who took the drug and then stopped following procedures to install a stent, researchers have found. According to the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, patients showed an almost two-fold increase of heart problems within the first 90 days of cessation when compared to later follow-up periods.

Plavix is an anti-platelet drug that thins your blood and makes it less likely to clot. Side effects include fatigue, headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, nosebleeds, some of which can be serious. Plavix was manufactured by Bristol Myers Squibb company. Doctors and other health care providers promote it as a drug capable of preventing strokes and heart attacks. The medication, however, has several side effects that should be known. Certain studies suggest that when aspirin and plavix are combined, the medication nearly doubled the death rate from heart disease among patients who hadn’t experienced a heart attack before, compared to just taking aspirin by itself. Recently, many patients have been told to stop taking Plavix and take aspirin only. Other heightened risks that were documented in patients taking both Plavix and aspirin was an increase in gastrointestinal bleeding and stomach ulcers. Based on the studies that have been conducted over the past 10 years since the drug was first manufactured, people taking Plavix are urged to speak to their doctor about the new findings and avoid taking certain over-the-counter medications without your doctor’s permission. In addition, if you doctor is recommending elective stent placement for narrowed coronary arteries, some doctors suggest that patients may want to have genetic testing before agreeing to the procedure so as to better understand the effect that Plavix could have on your body. A careful risk to benefit analysis should be reviewed for each patient. Lastly, many health care providers are warning their patients not to stop taking Plavix abruptly without first consulting with your doctor because it may actually increase your risk for a heart attack or a stroke.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 02/12/2008

According to the San Diego Union, Kaiser Permanente will pay $3.2 million to a disabled girl as part of birthing malpractice settlement reached earlier this month. According to court documents, the girl, now 14, was left with brain damage following a Caesarian delivery and suffers from physical and behavior problems associated with severe cerebral palsy that occurred following the loss of oxygen to her brain during delivery. The settlement will be used to purchase an annuity for the girl. That annuity will enable her parents to provide for the girl’s future medical care, including doctors’ visits, necessary medical monitoring, medical equipment and supplies and modifications to her home to make her care and treatment easier for the family.

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: 02/12/2008

Last month, Illinois jurors handed down a record verdict to the family of a woman who died from complications during child birth. Jurors awarded $22 million to the family, finding that the hospital staff’s failure to treat the woman’s high blood pressure resulted in a massive brain hemorrhage. According to Plaintiffs’ lawyers, the hospital staff negligently failed to properly treat the woman’s high blood pressure during labor, thereby causing the massive hemorrhage. After suffering the brain hemorrhage, the woman was placed on a ventilator and died four days later. Her son, Richard, was delivered by Caesarean section and survived. The verdict is the largest award involving the death of a woman in Illinois, according to the Cook County Jury Verdict Reporter.

At Silverman Thompson, our lawyers routinely handle medical malpractice / medical negligence matters involving health care providers’ failure to properly monitor patients during labor and delivery. Unfortunately, negligence during a woman’s labor and/or delivery often results in significant harm to the mother and/or children being born with profound physical and neurological deficits. A surviving spouse and/or parents are then often faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical expenses necessary to properly care for their child, expenses that they often cannot afford. At STSW, our lawyers recognize that in order to successfully pursue these cases, numerous experts must be retained in various fields of medicine ranging from obstetrics, maternal fetal medicine, neonatology, perinatology, pulmonology, critical care, nursing, physical medicine and rehabilitation, neurodevelopmental disabilities, life care planning, vocational rehabilitation and economics. Without securing experts in these fields, successful resolution of these cases would be very difficult. Naturally, it is expensive to locate and retain experts in these fields who are willing to testify in court against other doctors. Our lawyers, therefore, have cultivated long-standing relationships with numerous experts around the country who are willing to review these cases and testify if necessary. Our offices also are able to take these matters on a contingency basis, meaning that our firm pays all up front expenses during the pendency of the litigation and our clients are only obligated to repay us those funds if we are successful through a settlement, jury verdict or on appeal.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 02/12/2008

As reported in the Houston Chronicle last month, a new study has found that emergency room waiting times nationwide increased 36 percent between 1997 and 2004. The study, conducted by researchers from the Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, concluded that the increased wait likely has an adverse impact on patient care and may cause some to leave the hospital before seeing a doctor. Data for the study were based on the more than 90,000 emergency room visits in urban and non-urban areas.

Emergency room overcrowding is a widespread and debilitating situation in ER’s across this country today. Anyone who has visited an emergency room over the past several years has surely noticed the clear signs: conference rooms and offices converted to patient care areas, waiting rooms mobbed with people, sometimes standing room only, stressed nurses and aides working round the clock to see patients. In most emergency rooms, patients with non life threatening injuries can expect to wait upwards of 90 minutes to see a physician. Factors that have contributed to overcrowding include the closings of a number of emergency departments nationwide, increasing volume of patients, increasing severity of illnesses that patients contract, the frequency with which a large percentage of the population without healthcare utilize emergency rooms as their “primary care physicians”, nursing shortages, the fact that many underinsured or uninsured let their illnesses go on for weeks before seeking medical attention and the hospitals’ decision to admit elective cases (higher payments) rather than allocating beds to admitted and waiting emergency room patients. Other factors include the lack of availability of nursing home beds to clear room for people with acute illnesses, the shortage of radiology and laboratory technicians to process critical tests in a timely fashion, thereby preventing hospitals from discharging or admitting these patients.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 02/12/2008

As set forth in the New York Times last month, the results of a new study have shown that in nearly a third of cases hospital staffs take too long to respond to sudden cardiac arrests. The study, to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that the delays contribute to increased rates of brain damages and death each year. Data for the study were gathered from records at 369 hospitals where patients’ hearts stopped because of conditions that could be reversed using a defibrillator.

According to the American Heart Association, regardless of whether you have been trained, you should begin CPR with chest compressions on a person who you suspect is having a heart attack or is unconscious from a heart attack. With each passing minute after a heart attack, more heart tissue loses oxygen and begins to deteriorate and die. The way to prevent heart damage is to restore the flow of blood quickly. Medications that are typically given to heart attack victims include aspirin (reduces blood clotting, helping blood flow through a narrowed artery), clotbusters or thrombolytics (help dissolve a clot in your artery), super aspirins, nitroglycerin (temporarily opens arterial blood vessels, improving blood flow), beta blockers (help relax your heart muscle, slow your heartbeat and decrease blood pressure, making heart’s job easier), ACE inhibitors (lower blood pressure and reduce stress of heart), and cholesterol lowering medications (otherwise known as statins).

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on:02/11/2008

A jury in Connecticut has awarded $38.5 million to the family of a child who was born with cerebral palsy. The jury found that Dr. Corrinne De Cholnoky was negligent for failing to order a timely Caesarean Section to untangle the child’s umbilical cord, which was impeding blood flow to his brain and thereby resulted in serious physical and cognitive injuries. The award is believed to be the largest medical malpractice verdict in Connecticut state history.

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: 12/18/2007

As reported in numerous media outlets last week, actor Randy Quaid filed a lawsuit against Baxter International, a pharaceutical company, after his infant twins were given an overose of the Baxter-manufacturerd blood thinner heparin at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The suit alleges that Baxter was negligent because the company’s packaging design for heparin contributed to the hospital mix-up in the dosage. The suit notes that Baxter produces two vials of two different strengths, each with a blue background. One strength has a concentration of 10 units of heparin per milliliter, and the other has a concentration of 10,000 units per milliliter. The hospital administered the product that was 1000 times as strong. The suit contends Baxter was negligent because it knew that three infants died last year as a result of a similar heparin overdose related to packaging confusion but failed to recall the product or issue a warning to hospitals. The Quaid twins have recovered from the overdosage and the lawsuit seeks to bring awareness of the frequency of medication overdoses to the general public.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 12/17/2007

The parents of two girls who were killed after a concrete truck struck their family’s car will receive $9 million as part of a settlement with the trucking company. The parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Brundage-Bone Concrete Pumping claiming that the driver was negligent in the crash. State Highway Patrol records show that the driver was traveling at an unsafe speed before the incident. It was unclear whether the driver was on his cellular telephone immediately prior to the accident.

Baltimore is a heavily industrialized city and as such there is an abundance of commercial trucks sharing the road with cars, pedestrians and motorcycles. There are many hazards associated with trucks sharing the road including their larger size, need for increased turning space, speed and blind spots and this leads to an increased number of truck accidents in Baltimore. In addition, with the explosion of cellular telephones, texting devices and other wireless communication devices, the opportunity for truck drivers to be distracted has increased exponentially.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 11/16/2007

The family of a 6 year old girl who was severely injured after sitting on an open drain in a shallow country club pool filed a lawsuit this week against the club and pool manufacturer. The girl who lost part of her intestinal tract in the incident faces a small intestine transplant and lifetime medical expenses that could total tens of millions of dollars, said an attorney for the family. The girl requires a backpack with one tube carrying nutrients to her chest and another tube carrying predigested food to her stomach. She wears a colostomy bag and must attend school with a nurse. The lawsuit seeks damages for future medical costs and for the pool manufacturer to remove the pool cover from the market. Several states have passed pool safety laws after children drowned or were disemboweled by drain suction. North Carolina, for example, requires pools to have dual drains to prevent such injuries.

Sadly, each year, hundreds of children are killed or injured in pool drain-related incidents. In many instances, the vacuum effect of the pool drain holds swimmers, especially children, to the bottom of a pool. Contact with a pool drain by a child can result in suction that equates to roughly hundreds of pounds of pressure holding the child to the pool’s bottom. In one well documented case, four adult males were unable to successfully pull a young girl off a drain on the pool bottom due to the extreme suction forces being generated by the pool drain. In another case, a young boy died following the drain cap coming off of the drain and he being exposed to the suction forces of the drain itself.

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