Wilmington Personal Injury Lawyer - Medical Malpractice

Delay in Diagnosis: Failure to Timely Diagnose Stoke

Jean Martin — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:30:02 GMT

Caroline Monaghan was seen by her primary care physician, who determined that she possibly had blockage in her carotid arteries. Such a blockage, also known as stenosis, carries a great risk for a stroke. Monaghan then had an ultrasound, which found that she had 70% blockage in her left carotid artery. She was referred to a vascular surgeon who ordered an MRA/MRI. Based upon an incorrect interpretation of the MRA/MRI results, another doctor determined that Monaghan had only 50% blockage.

A carotid artery with 50% blockage is treated with aspirin therapy and monitoring. A test revealing 70% blockage can actually understate the amount of blockage, which could be as high as 99%, requiring emergency treatment.

Unfortunately for Ms. Monaghan, the incorrect reading of her MRA/MRI prevented her from having immediate surgical treatment. Days later, Ms. Monaghan suffered a massive stroke causing severe brain damage.

A Pennsylvania jury found the doctor who incorrectly read the MRA/MRI negligent and awarded over $5 million in damages. Recently an appeallate panel upheld the award.

Failure to timely diagnose and treat symptoms of a stroke can have dire consequences, as is evidenced by this case. When stroke victims are not treated quickly, they can suffer brain injury, paralysis, memory problems, and death. Quick diagnosis and treatment can prevent serious injury and death.

Know the warning signs and seek immediate treatment if you start experiencing any. And never be afraid to ask for a second medical opinion. You owe it to yourself and your family.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jean Martin

Delay in Diagnosis: Failure to Timely Diagnose Appendicitis

Jean Martin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:44:00 GMT

The third most common medical mistake is the failure to timely diagnose appendicitis. A delay in diagnosis of appendicitis can lead to serious consequences, including death, particularly in adults.

Unfortunately, James Bowers learned this first hand. A Texas resident, Mr. Bowers went to the emergency romm with complaints of nausea and abdominal pain, that had migrated to the right side of his abdomen (where pain from appendicitis is typically felt). Mr. Bowers had a CT scan, which a doctor read and concluded that Mr. Bowers had diverticulitis and sent him home, even thought the CT showed an englarged appendix and other classic signs of appendicitis. When Mr. Bower's condition worsened, he went back to the hospital, more than a week after his initial trip. The doctors continued to treat him for diverticulitis because of the incorrect reading of the first doctor.

Mr. Bower's appendix ruptured, and the delay in treatment resulted in an abscess and severe infection. As a result, rather than a short recovery that usually occurs after a timely appendectomy, Mr. Bowers missed more than a month of work and had to have home health care because of the time it took for his wound to heal.

A Texas jury agreed that the doctor in this case was negligent in missing the appendicitis diagnosis. Not surprisingly, the doctor's insurance company had refused to make any offer of settlement before the trial. I am glad the jury got this one right. And I hope that Mr. Bowers is doing well.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jean Martin

Delay in Diagnosis: Failure to Timely Diagnose and Treat Spinal Abscess Results in Paraplegia

Jean Martin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:45:00 GMT

A 53-year old male with a history of sciatica goes to a Bronx, New York emergency room complaining of back pain and exhibiting flu-like symptoms, including a low grade fever and elevated pulse rate. He is admitted to the hospital and when he demonstrates weakness in this arms and legs, the doctors determine that he has a Staph infection and attribute the weakness and pain to his sciatica. His problems continue to worsen to the point that he was not able to move his arms and legs. The doctors order CT scans of his lumbar, or lower, spine but no one orders an MRI or CT scan of his cervical spine, the neck, until two weeks later, despite his inability to move his upper or lower extremities and despite the finding of Staph A infection ( a bacteria commonly found in a spinal abscess).

When the CT of the cervical spine is conducted, it is found that this gentleman had a spinal abscess - an infection inside the spinal cord - causing his problems. He underwent surgery and rehabilitation, through which he regained the use of his arms, but his problems, and the doctors’ negligence, have rendered him a paraplegic.

The delay in diagnosis and treatment left this father of three paralyzed from the chest down. For the past five years , he has been unable to live in the family home because the house was not wheelchair accessible. This summer, a jury awarded him a little more than $19 million, finding the hospital negligent for the doctors’ failure to timely diagnose and treat his spinal abscess.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jean Martin

Delay in Diagnosis : Failure to Timely Diagnose Ovarian Cancer Leads to Death of Young Mother

Jean Martin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:05:47 GMT

Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of death due to cancer in women in the United States. Ovarian cancer causes more deaths than any other gynecological cancer. In 2005, almost 20,000 women were diagnosed with ovarian cancer and almost 15,000 died from the disease. What an alarming statistic! As a result of these rates, the Center for Disease Control has an ongoing project to raise awareness in doctors of ovarian cancer screening and testing practices.

Unfortunately for Ann Seneriches and her family, these efforts came too late. Despite six ultrasounds during her pregnancy that revealed a large mass in Ms. Seneriches’ right ovary, none of the obstetricians she saw referred her to an oncologist and none performed surgery to explore the mass. No follow up was ordered for after the delivery either. Six months later when Ms. Seneriches went to the emergency room complaining of a severely distended abdomen, she was diagnosed with Stage III ovarian cancer. She died two months later leaving behind her husband and newborn son.

Thankfully a Los Angeles jury agreed that Ms. Seneriches’ doctors were negligent in failing to timely diagnose and properly treat, failing to perform surgery, failing to refer her to an oncologist for further evaluation and simply failing to evaluate the mass.

Symptoms of ovarian cancer include pressure or fullness in the pelvis, bloating, abdominal swelling or increase in abdominal size, abdominal bleeding, pain during intercourse, low back pain, and changes in bowel or bladder patterns that persist or worsen. Women having these symptoms for more than a few weeks should consult their doctor. And if you are not getting relief from the prescribed treatment, go back for a follow-up visit. If the doctor doesn’t take your symptoms seriously, particularly if you have a family history of cancer, go to someone else for a second opinion.

The negligence of these doctors led to the worst case scenario for Ann Seneriches and her family. I cannot imagine the heartbreak that they are going through. I applaud the efforts of the CDC to spread the word to doctors about ovarian cancer, as it is quite evident that more education is needed in this regard.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jean Martin

"Facts are Stubborn Things" - Medical Malpractice Reform Won't Reduce Health Care Costs

Gary Shipman — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:30:51 GMT

It was December, 1770. John Adams was involved in the unpopular defense of soldiers charged with crimes in the famed "Boston Massacre", and argued: "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." Adam's words ring ever so true when we hear the cry from the uninformed that along with health care reform, there should be medical malpractice reform. Such statements ignore the facts, and can't alter the evidence - rising health care costs and medical malpractice litigation have nothing to do with one another.

Here are the facts. Malpractice lawsuits around the United States have steadily declined since 2003, and amount to a tiny percentage of the number of lawsuits that are filed each year. The number of doctors continues to increase (according to the AMA's own data), and the rate of growth in the physician population continues to outpace the growth in total population. For instance, in North Carolina, between 1998 and 2007, the total population in the State grew by 16.3%, while the physician population increased by 25%. The notion that "defensive medicine" is associated with the cause of escalating health care costs is belied by an independent report in 2004 from the Congressional Budget Office, entitled "Limiting Tort Liability for Medical Malpractice", which concluded that "malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of [health care] spending" and that "savings from reducing defensive medicine would be very small." Congress' own Office of Technology Assessment concluded that most physicians who "order aggressive diagnostic procedures...do so primarily because they believe that such procedures are medically indicated, not primarily because of concerns about liability." More than 98,000 people die each year because of medical mistakes, and obviously, only a small percentage of those deaths result in litigation against those responsible.

So, what will further restrictions on access to the courts do? It will reduce, not increase, accountability. It will further victimize those who are already victimized. It will make , therefore, matters worse, and not better.

Deal with the facts, not fiction.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gary Shipman

New Hanover Community Health Center Latest Facility To Expose Patients To Risk Of Blood-Borne Illness

Jean Martin — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:30:00 GMT

Headlines about unsanitary hospital practices causing disease outbreaks in places like China, Bulgaria, and even Ireland cause most of us to shake our heads and turn the page.

After all, American hospitals in the 21^st Century couldn’t possibly transmit fatal diseases by reusing syringes or equipment. Right?

Think again.

Hospitals and clinics in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Nevada, New Jersey, and Texas are just some of the health-care settings in which hundreds of patients have contracted Hepatitis C because workers failed to take proper precautions or outright violated safety protocols.

And now a health clinic in New Hanover county has followed this deadly trend. The New Hanover Community Health Center recently announced that it had sent letters to almost 300 patients who may have been exposed to blood borne illnesses, which can include hepatitis and HIV, due to a machine malfunction. The center recently discovered that a glucose meter used to monitor blood sugar levels in diabetic patients may have malfunctioned so that more than one patient was pricked with the same needle. The patients that were sent warning letters were patients who had been seen since January of this year when this new machine started to be used. It took 6 months for someone to notice that the needles in the meter were not rotating properly? Was this user error instead of a machine malfunction? The patients are being asked to come in for free blood tests. Fortunately, those patients that have been tested to date have tested negatively, but this story is a perfect example of why proper training and proper maintenance of equipment is vitally important.

Not counting hospital outbreaks, the CDC reported earlier this year that 33 outbreaks of hepatitis B and C in settings such as nursing homes and outpatient clinics over the last 10 years put an estimated 60,000 people at risk of bloodborn infections. In those cases, 173 people were diagnosed with hepatitis B and 275 were diagnosed with hepatitis C.

Hepatitis is a virus that comes in six varieties: A, B, C, D, E and G. All of them attack the liver, but hepatitis C is usually considered the most serious. Hepatitis C can be fatal. It can cause liver cancer, liver failure, or cirrhosis. It is usually transmitted by infected blood, often through shared or reused needles.

How can something so dangerous yet so preventable happen in modern American health care facilities?

In little Laurinburg, N.C., last year a technician infected seven patients with Hepatitis C during cardiac stress tests conducted at an outpatient clinic. The tests involve injecting a dye into a patient’s vein.

Nearly 100 patients at a cancer clinic inside a Nebraska hospital were infected with hepatitis C from 2000 through 2001 because the clinic reused syringes. In Las Vegas last year, two endoscopy clinics spread the virus to 114 patients by reusing syringes and medicine vials.

In Texas, a nurse at a military hospital injected himself with a patient’s drugs and then injected the patient with the same needle, giving him hepatitis C. In Atlantic City this year, 15 people were infected after starting dialysis at an Atlantic City hospital.

In Colorado, 5,700 patients may have been exposed during surgeries at the Rose and Audubon Surgery Center in Colorado Springs by a technician accused of using their syringes full of painkillers and then refilling them with saline for use on the patients. In that instance, the hospital and the technician may have known the technician needed testing to determine if she was positive for the virus after signs turned up in a pre-employment exam.

These events not only threaten the lives of the patients that health care facilities are supposed to treat; they cast a cloud of fear over thousands of patients notified that they may have been exposed to a dread disease.

It would be easy to blame the technicians performing the seemingly mundane tasks that often result in hepatitis C transmission. But taking blood, injecting dyes, and administering pain medication are medical procedures. Doctors, hospitals and nursing homes should be held responsible for their safe performance.

*Thanks to Cory Reiss, summer law clerk and 3L at Wake Forest University School of Law, who was the major contributor to this blog post*

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jean Martin

Stroke Risks and Symptoms Overlooked in Women

Jean Martin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:50:24 GMT

Women between the ages of 45 and 54 are twice as likely to suffer strokes as men of the same age. Women are also more likely than men to be physically or mentally impaired as a result of a stroke. Unfortunately, doctors often overlook the opportunities to prevent strokes in women because of an emphasis in medical school that strokes and heart attacks are male problems.

According to the American Stroke Association, more than 100,000 American women under 65 suffer strokes every year. That’s well above the 83,000 women in the same range who have heart attacks. Studies show that physicians take longer to diagnose women as having suffered a stroke, and women are less likely to get treatments or tests that can improve chances for recovery.

Time is the biggest factor hindering the chances of avoiding death or a lifelong disability. There is a just a three-hour window to use a clot-busting drug test called tPA. However, according to a study of over 2,000 patients from researchers at Michigan State University, women are 30% less likely to receive tPA than men. One of the researchers noted that 60% of stoke-related deaths occur in women.

Of further concern is the post-diagnosis treatment women receive after having a stroke. Female patients often miss out on two tests that can help prevent future problems: the imaging of the carotid artery in the neck, which feeds blood to the brain, and an echocardiogram, which can show heart abnormalities, according to Lewis Morgenstern, director of the stroke program at the University of Michigan Medical School. According to Morgenstern, one in seven patients has a second stroke within a year, and these tests are crucial to their prevention.

* Many thanks to intern/law student Josh McIntyre for his contributions to this blog.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jean Martin

Settlement Reached in Case of Newborn Burned By Malfunctioning Respirator/Humidifier

Jean Martin — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:48:45 GMT

In the winter of 2007, a newborn suffered severe and permanent injuries, including disfiguring burns, as a result of malfunctioning respirator and humidifier. Thermal burn resulted in air so hot that it melted the plastic tubing to the baby's nose. Lawyers for the family today announced that a settlement had been reached in the case for $18.5 million.

This is a terrific result. Children are our most precious resource and deserve the best protection and the utmost care. It is truly tragic when something so horrific happens to a child, especially a newborn. I am happy to hear that the negligent defendants did the right thing and settled this case without having the family go through a lengthy and arduous lawsuit.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jean Martin

New Hanover Regional Medical Center Asks If Nurses Treated You Well

Jean Martin — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:07:52 GMT

New Hanover Regional Medical Center is asking patients to provide their comments about the treatment they received from nurses while in the hospital. NHRMC is seeking a designation of nursing excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet Recognition Program. The certification process requires input from patients and their families as to the care and treatment they received from the nursing staff. NHRMC received the nursing excellence certification in 2003 and now the certification is up for renewal.

I hope that patients and their families will provide their comments. The nurses who work very hard and provide excellent care deserve to be recognized. We do not always stop to praise those who perform a job well. We are often quick to criticize, but are slow to praise.

I think hospitals should ask patients on a regular basis about the care and treatment they receive from the medical staff, not just nurses. Hospitals need to know what patients think. Our firm often receives calls from people wanting to file a lawsuit for medical negligence, when it turns out that the real problem was the way they were personally (as opposed to medically) treated by the staff. Perhaps some of these ill feelings could have been resolved before the patient left the hospital if someone in the hospital had asked about their care and responded to the patient's concerns. Human beings have a desire to be heard and have someone validate a concern. We stew about it and get upset when this doesn't happen. Have you ever realized how quickly you calm down about something when someone actually listens?

So I encourage the residents of Wilmington, New Hanover county and the surrounding area to post their comments regarding the nursing care at NHRMC. Comments can be mailed to: American Nurses Credentialing Center Magnet Recognition Program Office; 8515 Georgia Ave., Suite 400; Silver Spring, MD 20910-3492. They also can be faxed to (301) 628-5217 or e-mailed to magnet@ana.org. Hopefully you will have many positive things to say.

Since the comments requested for the creditialing purpose will not be shared with the hospital, I encourage you to let hospital officials now how the entire staff is doing. Please share the positive comments as well as the negative ones. And to NHRMC, I encourage you to ask for comments from patients and their families more often. You may just like what you hear.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Jean Martin

Jury in Ohio Awards $22.6 million in Medical Malpractice Case

Gary Shipman — Wed, 21 May 2008 14:23:48 GMT

A jury in Hamilton County, Ohio, awarded $22.6 million in a medical malpractice case against a doctor and her medical group surrounding the birth of Cassie Grown, now 11, who is a spastic quadriplegic.

The child's mother, experiencing her first pregnancy, had a narrow pelvis arch, and approximately 2 weeks before she gave birth, doctors realized that the child was going to be big, and the plaintiff's attorneys alleged that they should have realized that the child was not going to fit through the mother's birth canal. The mother was in labor for more than 13 hours, during which she was being given drugs to make the uterus contract, which the mother and her attorneys alleged caused brain damage to Cassie.

Cassie has limited use of her limbs, and has to use a walker. She has vision problems and difficulty using her hands.

Birth injuries are often subtle, and on many occaions are not discovered until years after a child is born.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Gary Shipman