Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 11/14/2007

As reported last week in the Winston Salem Journal, a jury awarded an Ashe County family $10.4 million after determining that the care given to a boy being treated at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in 2003 was negligent. In 2003, 11 year old Kaleb Davis was critically injured when a tree limb fell on him during a family camping trip. Although the injuries from the falling limb alone would have left him with a useless left arm for the rest of his life, mistakes at the hospital worsened the boy’s situation according to the boy’s attorneys. After three days of deliberating, a jury agreed and awarded Kaleb $10 million and his mother $437,093 for medical expenses. During the trial, the family’s attorneys argued that physicians committed two mistakes which caused bleeding in Kaleb’s brain and spine, injuries which left him unable to live independently and required doctors to later have to fuse his spine to his skull, making it impossible to turn his head.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on:11/01/2007

As first reported in the Los Angeles Times on October 31, 2007, 33-year-old Christopher Jones, died outside the Olive View-UCLA Medical Center last week after waiting for 3 hours for treatment for chest pains. According to reports, Jones arrived with complaints of ongoing chest pains but was told to sit in the waiting room until it was his turn. Despite his ongoing symptoms, the hospital’s health care providers failed to perform a simple test to determine whether his heart was functioning properly, a standard practice for a patient complaining of such pain. After waiting for more than 3 hours, Jones got up, walked outside and collapsed on the pavement, dying within minutes. As reported in the LA Times, medical records show the Olive View triage nurse never wrote down basic details about Jones’ complaints, including the location of his chest pain or how bad it was. Those symptoms are key to determining how the hospital should respond. While Jones had his pulse, blood pressure and blood sugar levels tested, the medical records do not show he was given an electrocardiogram, a test used to diagnose heart attacks. The American College of Cardiology strongly advises hospitals to conduct an EKG within 10 minutes of a patient’s arrival at an emergency department if he or she complains of chest pain or has other symptoms associated with a heart attack.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on:11/01/2007

In Detroit, Michigan last week, Valerija Milosevic, 75, was recovering from a heart attack in the ICU at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital in Clinton Township. While attempting to get of her hospital, Milosevic fell, breaking her nose and gashing her forehead. Medical staff began treating those injuries, including a cut above her eyebrow that required 20 stitches. The medical staff, however, failed to remove Milosevic’s oxygen mask prior to attempting to cauterize the cuts. As a result, a “fire burst” occurred, severely burning Milosevic’s face. Milosevic has not yet regained consciousness since the fire. Medical professionals inside the room during the procedure also suffered minor injuries. As reported in the Detroit News, a hospital spokeswoman expressed apologies to the family and noted that the hospital was “assuming all accountability for the incident.”

Tragically, fires in hospitals and, in particular, the operating room are an all too common occurrence, often resulting in severe burns or even death. Recent studies indicate that upwards of 650 operating room fires occur each year. Perhaps the saddest part of each of these instances is that these types of fires are usually entirely preventable. Surgical fires these days are often caused by the use of electro-cautery devices, instruments that reach several hundred degrees. Other types of devices include lasers, overhead and fiber optic light sources, drills and burrs. Lasers in particular have been known to create small areas of intense heat that burn through anything in their path and ignite things such as surgical tubes, clothing, patient hair and swabs. These devices form part of a trifecta of elements needed for a flash fire: oxygen, alcohol prep and an ignition source (the electro-cautery device). The fire hazard has been heightened by the increased use of things such as disposable drapes, antiseptic skin agents and cloth/paper drapes. These fires can be prevented through a number of means such as: using the lowest possible inspired oxygen concentration that still ensures adequate oxygen saturation or administering oxygen along with a nonflammable gas such as helium or nitrogen.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 11/01/2007

As first reported by Newsday on Tuesday, Aileen Rivera, a New York mother, announced plans to file a $25-million dollar lawsuit against Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York for “negligence, recklessness and carelessness”, stemming from an emergency room doctor’s failure to diagnose her 12-year-old son, Omar, with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as MRSA. Instead, the doctor gave Omar an over-the-counter antihistamine and sent him home. Two days later, Omar was dead. The hospital has said that Omar did not exhibit symptoms of MRSA when his mother brought him to the emergency room.

MRSA is caused by a strain of staph bacteria that has become resistant to antibiotics commonly used to treat these ordinary types of infections. Generally speaking, MRSA infections occur in hospitalized patients as MRSA generally “breeds” in these settings. Other common settings include nursing homes and dialysis centers. Common symptoms associated with MRSA include small red bumps on the skin that quickly turn into painful abscesses that require draining by surgical means. If these abscesses are allowed to fester untreated, they are prone to bury deep within the body causing potentially life threatening conditions in the bones and joints and bloodstream of the patient. MRSA can progress significantly within 24-48 hours of initial topic symptoms. After 72 hours it can take hold in human tissues and become resistant to treatment.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 10/29/2007

Earlier this month, a DuPage County, Illinois jury awarded the family of a seven-year-old boy who was crippled at birth $12 million dollars. In making this award, jurors agreed that Dr. Steven Ambrust was responsible for a 45-minute delay during the Benjamin Hayes’ birth that deprived him of oxygen and caused his disability. An attorney for Hayes’ parents says the boy has normal or above-average intelligence but cannot control his limbs, must use a wheelchair and requires a feeding tube. The jury saw the boy’s physical limitations during the trial, but he didn’t testify. Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield settled a claim by the family out of court.

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.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 10/29/2007

A severely brain damaged child and his mother were awarded almost $8 million in damages last week in a medical malpractice lawsuit against a Maine hospital and one of its nurse midwives. In the case, the mother alleged that her nurse midwife and Central Maine Medical Center failed to recommend an emergency cesarean section during the delivery of her child, causing the child to be born with cerebral palsy that was caused by lack of oxygen and blood and to his brain.

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.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 10/25/2007

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.

Nursing home cases also differ from more traditional personal injury cases because they focus more on the pain, suffering and loss of dignity associated with the below standard care. In this vein, it is important for a patient’s lawyer to identify multiple witnesses who saw the pain and suffering; to show that the patient was being given pain medication; have an expert discuss the various levels of pain that the patient was in at various times and provide visual demonstrations of painful procedures such as debridement (removal of dead skin surrounding a pressure sore).

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 10/25/2007

In September 2007, attorneys Andrew Slutkin and Avery Strachan of the law firm of Silverman Thompson filed a construction fraud and construction negligence lawsuit in the Circuit Court for Harford County against home builders Altieri Homes, Inc., Altieri Enterprises, Inc., Frank Altieri and Daren Altieri, alleging that they developed and built a single-family house that they knew was not structurally safe and sound, sold that house to the Plaintiff, and then affirmatively represented to the Plaintiff after the sale that the house was structurally safe and sound, thereby defrauding the Plaintiff and endangering the lives of the Plaintiff and her two young children.

The suit alleges that the house that the Altieri Defendants built and sold to the Plaintiff is lacking necessary structural support, has a variety of construction defects, sways when someone walks up the stairs or in light wind and, according to a certified structural engineer, is so structurally unsound that it is in danger of collapsing. The suit also includes a claim of negligence against the engineering firm that allegedly designed the house, Consulting Engineers, Corp.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 10/24/2007

In Maryland, contributory negligence means that if a person is found to be 1% or more at fault, that person is 100% barred from making any recovery.

For example, if you are the victim of a rear end collision and the judge or jury finds you contributed to the accident by stopping too quickly, you can not recover for any of your medical bills, lost wages or other damages. Often in slip and fall cases, a Maryland plaintiff will be barred from recovery because a jury determines the plaintiff is partially at fault for not watching where she was going.

The Contributory Negligence Doctrine is unique to Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and the District of Columbia.

In medical malpractice cases, the duty to exercise reasonable care does not rest exclusively upon the doctor in a physician/patient relationship. Rather, the patient is bound to use the amount of care in the protection of his own health and well being being as a reasonably prudent person would use under similar circumstances. In order for a plaintiff’s negligence to constitute such a bar, it must be a true contributing proximate cause of the damages suffered. If it occurs subsequent to the defendant’s negligence, merely exacerbating the damages rather than contributing to their cause, the plaintiff’s negligence might serve to mitigate the recoverable damages, but it will not relieve the defendant from liability. This is not to say that subsequent acts by the plaintiff may not constitute contributory negligence. They can. But the test is not simultaneity but whether the plaintiff’s negligence has significantly contributed to the injury for which he or she sues.

Continue Reading ››

 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 10/24/2007

The extra medical costs of treating drug-related injuries occurring in hospitals alone conservatively amount to $3.5 billion a year, and this estimate does not take into account lost wages and productivity or additional health care costs, the report says.

The committee commissioned to write the report recommended a series of actions for patients, health care organizations, government agencies, and pharmaceutical companies. The recommendations include steps to increase communication and improve interactions between health care professionals and patients, as well as steps patients should take to protect themselves against this happening to them.

The report also calls for prescriptions to be made electronically by 2010 and posits ways to improve things such as naming, packaging and labeling of drugs to prevent errors and reduce patient confusion and the creation of new, consumer-friendly information resources through which patients can obtain objective, easy-to-understand drug information.

Continue Reading ››