Saturday, December 12, 2009

By Katherine Sayre, www.al.com

 A Mobile County jury awarded $20 million this week to the family of a woman who plaintiffs’ lawyers said died after receiving improper anesthesia care.

The jury returned the wrongful death verdict against medical group Coastal Anesthesia, Dr. Randall Boudreaux and Don Ortego, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, court records show.

Paulett Pettaway Hall, a 32-year-old wife and mother of two, died Jan. 16, 2006, after receiving anesthesia prior to exploratory surgery, according to Cunningham Bounds, the law firm that represented Hall’s estate.

Hall, who had been suffering from severe abdominal pain, breathed bile from her stomach into her lungs, the lawyers stated in a news release. She died at Springhill Medical Center.

Coastal Anesthesia, Boudreaux and Ortego denied the claims in the lawsuit, according to court records.

Defense lawyer Wesley Pipes, speaking on behalf of his clients, said, “We were disappointed in the jury’s verdict, and we’re disappointed that they did not seem to understand the evidence we tried to present.”

Pipes declined further comment.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that Boudreaux and Ortego did not examine Hall’s abdomen or look at her medical records prior to the exploratory surgery, which would have identified her risk factors for breathing fluid into her lungs, according to the Cunningham Bounds news release.

Medical malpractice is any action or omission by a medical professional that injuriously deviates from accepted standards and practices or causes accelerated injury or death. As such, malpractice can be considered those actions or inactions that cause damage that would have otherwise been avoided.

From that definition, we are able to dive into the complex world of medical malpractice. Often legal suits entail unfortunate complications with loved ones and emotions run very high. From a family perspective, perceived errors by a doctor can prompt individuals to pursue legal action. From a doctor perspective, prevalency of medical lawsuits can actually lead to lack of treatment or hesitancy to make critical decisions.

With both sides trying to do what’s best for their interests, it can be difficult to know when pursuing a malpractice suit is advisable. That being the case, let’s examine some of the most common situations where legal action is appropriate:

Kinds of Medical Malpractice

* Medication Errors. This can involve medicines given on site in the hospital or prescribed for extended use.

* Medical Misdiagnosis. If a medical problem is misdiagnosed the treatment (or lack of treatment) can have drastically injurious effects on a patient.

* Failure to Diagnose. Similar dangers to misdiagnosis, only mostly focused on a lack of treatment.

* Anesthesia Mistakes. Anesthesiologists have a rigorous amount of credentials to accrue in order to begin practicing. The reason why is because anesthesia is a hotbed of potential complications.

* Birth Injuries. The birthing process is complex and requires many on-the-spot decisions, leading to potential error.

* Surgical Errors. When in surgery, it is a surgeons responsibility to follow proper protocols and avoid preventable complications.

There are more of course, and medical malpractice can span out to a great variety of issues.

Malpractice Verdict and Award Examples

To better understand how the process of suing for malpractice takes place, here are three examples of the legal system in action.

*VICTIM’S FAMILY AWARDED $19.8 MILLION IN MALPRACTICE SUIT*

In what is believed to be one of Massachusetts’ biggest medical malpractice awards, a Plymouth County jury ordered a Brockton doctor to pay $19.8 million to the family of a Wareham woman who died after her undiagnosed cervical cancer spread. Cervical Cancer is among the most curable forms of the disease if found early, but Higgins argued that McCormack’s lapses allowed the cancer to spread. Wood died June 17, 1993.

Higgins said the size of the award demonstrates “that people don’t want to be treated by a doctor from across the room.” “People want doctors to take their signs and symptoms and complaints seriously,” he said.

*TENNESSEE MAN SUFFERS STROKE WHILE UNDERGOING CHIROPRACTIC TREATMENT*

DreamLegalTeam.com was contacted for a referral by a young woman from a small town in Tennessee whose husband suffered a brain stem stroke while undergoing manipulation at his chiropractor’s office. The chiropractor practiced in Mississippi. After this stroke, the 36 year old man sustained injuries that left him blind, unable to speak clearly or walk/drive/function normally.

The woman was looking for the best medical malpractice attorney in her area to answer her questions with regard to current and future medical care, rehabilitation, lost wages and compensation for the pain and suffering her husband was experiencing. DreamLegalTeam.com referred the woman to a specialist lawyer in Memphis. The lawyer secured prolonged medical care and attention for the effects of the accident and also a large financial settlement.

*27 YEAR OLD MISSOURI WOMAN DIES DUE TO MALPRACTICE*

DreamLegalTeam.com received a request for a free online consultation from a gentleman from Little Rock, Arkansas.  A few months earlier, his 27 year old wife was taken to a hospital in St. Louis, Missouri because she was short of breath and dizzy.  The doctors sent her home and said nothing was wrong with her.  Two days later, she died with blood clots in her lungs.
 
This young man contacted my office as to how he could find the best medical malpractice attorney in the St. Louis area.  We referred this client to a person uniquely qualified to evaluate this potential claim, a nationally acclaimed attorney who is also a medical doctor.  The attorney evaluated and accepted this case.
 
Although nothing can truly compensate this heart-broken young widower, he did receive a large financial award.

Securing Proper Legal Representation

As you can tell from the examples, the key to success in a malpractice case is securing representation in your area that understands the intricacies of medical law. The lawyer needs to be nearby and accessible in order to properly asses the history of the medical practitioners in question, understand the variable laws of your state, and gather the proper details from you regarding your case.

By Brian Skoloff

Associated Press

Posted August 21, 2009

A pregnant woman was mistakenly given a drug that quickens labor. She and the father are now suing because their baby is brain-damaged as they struggle to pay medical bills that have topped $3.5 million.

WEST PALM BEACH — A hospital mistakenly gave a pregnant woman a drug commonly used to speed up labor, causing her to give birth two months early and severely injuring the baby, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.

The suit was filed against St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach; its owner, Dallas, Texas-based Tenet Healthcare; and several nurses, doctors and pharmacists.

The plaintiffs, Tesome Sampson and Frank Guy, claim medical bills for their brain-damaged baby have now topped $3.5 million. The lawsuit claims St. Mary’s and the other defendants were negligent in administering the wrong drug. It seeks unspecified damages.

In a statement, the hospital acknowledged the error and said steps have been taken to keep it from happening again.

“On Sept. 4, 2008, a patient came to St. Mary’s in extremely premature labor. Due to a medication error, the patient was given medication to speed up her labor instead of medication that attempts to stop premature labor. Ultimately, the baby was born and suffered brain damage,” the statement said. “This was an unfortunate error that occurred despite the safeguards we have in place. . . . We apologized to the family for this deeply regrettable error.”

The couple’s attorney, David Kelley, said Sampson was admitted to St. Mary’s on Aug. 25, 2008, when she was 24 weeks pregnant. Doctors put her on bed rest to avoid early delivery.

Ten days later, Kelley said, she was given the wrong drug. The medication, Prostin E2, is approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration for the termination of pregnancies and for expelling uterine contents after a fetus dies and is often used to speed up labor.

A few hours after being given the drug, Kelley said the woman suffered severe cramps and was told she needed to have a bowel movement. She was given a portable toilet, and delivered the baby into the container, according to the lawsuit.

The baby girl was two months premature. She is now hospitalized with “profound brain damage,” Kelley said. “This is the most horrific case I’ve handled,” he added. “It is absolutely outrageous and I think requires a criminal investigation.”

Published October 21, 2009 by newsinferno.com

A patient who received a radiation overdose from a CT brain scan at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has filed a class action lawsuit against the hospital. The lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, also names GE Healthcare as a defendant.

Last week, we reported that officials at Cedars-Sinai confirmed that 206 patients mistakenly received eight times the regular dose of radiation during CT brain scans, which are used to diagnose strokes. The machine at Cedars-Sinai had been set at the higher level since February 2008,, but the mistake had not been detected for 18 months. According to the Medical Center, the overdoses were discovered in August, when a patient reported hair loss.

It is not yet known what led to the overdoses at Cedars-Sinai. They may have been the result a device malfunction, or appropriate procedures may not have been followed. In an alert posted on its Web site, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) said it was concerned that the radiation overdosing may reflect more widespread problems with CT quality assurance programs, and that the problem could go undetected and unreported, putting patients at increased risk for long-term radiation effects. The agency advised every facility performing CT imaging to review its CT protocols and be aware of the dose indices normally displayed on the control panel.

The Cedars-Sinai radiation overdose class action lawsuit includes all individuals who received a CT brain perfusion scan at Cedars Sinai Medical Center from February 2008 through August 2009. It also includes anyone who received such a scan that utilized CT image machines manufactured by GE Healthcare, Inc. and GE Healthcare Technologies at any medical facility during the two year period preceding the suit.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Trevor Rees, one of the 206 patients subjected to a radiation overdose at Cedars-Sinai. Rees received his CT scan in December 2008, and experienced hair loss in the weeks following the procedure, as well as red and flaky skin on his face and scalp. However, the lawsuit claims he only heard of the botched CT scans at Cedars-Sinai through media reports. Rees did receive a phone call from hospital officials last month, but says he was only asked if he had experienced any side effects following his scan. Rees claims he was not told the real reason for the call.

The lawsuit claims Cedars-Sinai staff and the scanner’s manufacturer, General Electric Healthcare, were negligent in performing the scans. The suit also alleges medical malpractice, product liability and breach of warranty. It seeks general and economic damages.

Published on August 23, 2009 by Dentonrc.com

A Denton County jury has awarded the family of a Denton woman who died of misdiagnosed cancer $3.5 million, one of the largest awards in Denton since the tort law reform of 2003.

Civil suit law, however, will cut that amount to $1.5 million to be shared by her husband, her two young children and her father after attorney fees.

Melissa Hendricks was 33 when she noticed a marble-sized bump on the right crown of her head, according to court documents.

“She was concerned, since her mother died of cancer,” said Thomas McMurray, the family’s attorney.

Hendricks waited about a month, then visited Highland Family Medical Center in Highland Village on Oct. 14, 2002. She saw Dr. Stephen Glaser, who told her it was a sebaceous cyst, which is a nonmalignant lesion, according to the documents.

A week later, physician’s assistant Jason Maris, who worked for Glaser, removed the cyst. He discarded it and did not send it to a lab for testing.

A year passed, and the lesion returned. Hendricks visited another doctor, Denton surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Charney, who did not remove the cyst at that time because she was pregnant. She returned on Jan. 7, 2004, and Charney examined the lesion again. It had quadrupled in size, and he believed it was a sarcoma. Subsequent tests confirmed the finding.

McMurray said Hendricks had a 2-year-old child and a 9-month-old baby at the time. She was employed as a nutritionist and working toward a doctorate at Texas Woman’s University. She was referred to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where there began a desperate fight for her life. She died Dec. 14, 2004.

Her husband, Tadd Hendricks — on behalf of himself, their two children and her father, Charlie Morello — filed a medical malpractice wrongful death suit against Highland Family Medical Center, Glaser and Maris. The defendants also brought Charney into the case, but Probate Court Judge Don Windle dropped him from the suit.

Defense lawyers Cynthia Hall and Vernon Krueger could not be reached for comment on the case.

The trial began Aug. 3 and ended Wednesday.

McMurray said the jury found that Glaser failed to diagnose the cancer and that his assistant failed to have the lesion tested to determine what it actually was. Jurors assigned 10 percent of the negligence in the case to the young mother because she knew she had a history of cancer in her family and waited a month to seek medical assistance. They assigned 45 percent of the negligence to Glaser and 45 percent to Maris.

McMurray said his research did not reveal a larger award in a case since the tort reform cut down the amounts that could be awarded for pain and suffering and other special damages.

After the verdict, the atmosphere in the courtroom was highly emotional, the lawyer said.

“The family is completely satisfied that Melissa’s life has been given value,” McMurray said. “Their goal was to make sure it doesn’t happen to someone else.”

May 2, 2009

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says 18 patients treated at its hospital in Murfreesboro have tested positive for a form of hepatitis since the agency began an investigation into the use of improperly sanitized equipment in colonoscopies there.

Five have tested positive for hepatitis B, and 13 have tested positive for the hepatitis C. In addition, one Murfreesboro patient tested positive for HIV.

All of the patients received colonoscopies at the Alvin C. York Medical Center between April 2003 and December 2008. During that time, the VA has said, some colonoscopies were performed at the Murfreesboro hospital using tubes with valves that were not working correctly. The improper valves may have exposed patients to bodily fluids from previous patients.

The VA has insisted that it is impossible to know whether the positive test results are directly linked to problems with hospital equipment, and that the risk of catching a virus in this way is exceptionally low.

In all, more than 6,300 Murfreesboro colonoscopy patients received letters this year advising them to be tested.

Similar problems were discovered at VA medical centers in Miami and Augusta, Ga. Nineteen patients from those two centers have tested positive for viruses; four of those positive tests were for HIV.

— CLAY CAREY
mcarey@tennessean.com

By Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.11.2008

PHOENIX — A veteran state lawmaker is trying again to make it harder for those injured in hospital emergency rooms to sue for damages.

Sen. Carolyn Allen, R-Scottsdale, said Wednesday she is introducing legislation that would require a patient to prove malpractice by “clear and convincing evidence” to win a lawsuit. That is a heavier burden than current law, which says jurors can decide in favor of the patient if they believe it is more likely than not that the doctor committed malpractice.

Allen, who chairs the Committee on Healthcare and Liability Reform, cited a new study by the American College of Emergency Physicians that gives Arizona an “F” in access to emergency care.

She said that grade is based on the unwillingness of doctors to work in emergency rooms. And that, Allen said, is due in part to the fear of lawsuits.

“We have a shortage of doctors,” she said. “And the fact that we could make it easier for them to want to go into emergency-room doctoring could be nothing but a good thing.”

But Tucson attorney JoJene Mills said the change would make it virtually impossible for anyone injured to sue successfully.

Mills, a member of the Arizona Trial Lawyers Association, disputed Allen’s contention that throwing new legal roadblocks in the path of patients will lead to more doctors willing to work in hospital emergency rooms.

“Doctors don’t come to emergency rooms because they don’t get paid because the patients are uninsured,” she said. Mills said that could be one area lawmakers might want to address.

Mills, whose organization represents plaintiffs in lawsuits, also said Allen is missing the point of why people sue in the first place: They get injured. She said there’s a much simpler way of addressing the issue.

“We start reducing medical errors so that doctors won’t get sued as much because they won’t be making as many errors,” Mills said. She said what Allen wants is for patients to give up their rights in exchange for some claim — Mills says unproven — that it will reduce malpractice-insurance premiums.

Allen, however, said there is evidence from other states, which have curbed lawsuits and jury verdicts, that costs do go down.

She acknowledged that her bill alone might not make any difference, but that absolute limits on how much juries can award injured patients would. That issue, however, is off the table, at least for the time being.

Arizona is one of a handful of states with constitutional language barring lawmakers from imposing limits on jury awards. And voters have repeatedly rejected efforts by doctors and the insurance industry to repeal those provisions.

Allen pushed the proposal through the Legislature in 2006 only to have it vetoed by Gov. Janet Napolitano. But Allen noted that Napolitano, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, will be gone soon, replaced by Secretary of State Jan Brewer, a Republican like Allen.

Craig Norquist, president of the Arizona College of Emergency Physicians, said, “To try to remove any of the barriers to have somebody willing to take calls in the emergency department, or even to work in the emergency department, is going to be beneficial.”

Norquist said it might also encourage doctors from other states wanting to make a change to move here instead of going somewhere else.

“I receive fliers on almost a daily basis to go to work for different emergency-medicine groups in different states,” the Phoenix doctor said. “One of the major advertisements is that they’re in a malpractice- reform state.”

by Sylvia Hsieh

Dolan Media Newswires

Wisconsin Law Journal

December 1, 2008

Boston — A new type of med-mal lawsuit is on the increase — claims based on hospital infections.

Several recent verdicts and settlements illustrate this trend:

On Nov. 6, a jury awarded $13.5 million to a Massachusetts woman who died of an infection caused by flesh-eating bacteria that she contracted during cancer treatment.

On Nov. 14, a Utah woman reached a confidential settlement in a $16 million suit she filed, alleging that a hospital failed to detect necrotizing fasciitis, a flesh-eating bacteria, before and after she gave birth, causing her to lose three limbs and several organs.

In July, a Missouri couple was awarded $2.58 million after the husband contracted a potentially deadly type of staph infection, known as Methicillin Resistant Staph Aureus (MRSA), when doctors inserted a pacemaker. As a result of the infection, the patient lost a kidney and his leg and foot had to be amputated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta has estimated that over 2 million hospital-acquired infections occur annually, resulting in 90,000 deaths. In long-term care facilities, the CDC estimates an additional 1.5 million health-care associated infections occur each year.

“This is the next asbestos. Now that the evidence is overwhelming that nearly all infections are preventable, hospitals that don’t follow the proven protocols are inviting lawsuits,” said Betsy McCaughy, founder and chair of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, a non-profit patient safety organization in New York.

According to McCaughy, 26 states have passed laws requiring reporting of hospital-acquired infections.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys say that hospitals can no longer argue that these infections are inevitable.

“Anyone providing health care to an individual is no longer going to have immunity for transmitting infections,” said Gloria Seidule, an attorney with Seidule & Webber in Stuart, Fla., who is currently litigating a hospital-acquired infection lawsuit involving MRSA, a “superbug” that is resistant to most antibiotics.

Seidule said that hospitals in general have not taken the initiative on prevention measures, opening the door to litigation.

Mary Coffey, an attorney at Coffey Nichols in St. Louis, said that “a lot of lawyers think they can’t ever trace an infection and that getting an infection in a hospital is not necessarily negligent, which is true. But I would say you can prove it.”

Coffey won the $2.58 million verdict on behalf of a 69-year-old Missouri man who contracted MRSA through an IV that was administered in the ambulance following a heart attack. When doctors later inserted a pacemaker, the infection spread.

Standard of Care Changing

A number of new guidelines and rules are arguably raising the standard of care that applies to hospitals in preventing infections.

As of Oct. 1, 2008, Medicare has stopped reimbursing for certain types of hospital-acquired infections.

Last year, the CDC published guidelines for preventing infections.

In addition, the Joint Commission, a non-profit organization based in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., that evaluates and accredits health care programs, released a compendium of strategies for preventing infections in October.

Coffey said that the idea that hospital-acquired infections are preventable is gaining credence and “the standard of care is changing.”

“There are CDC standards on infection prevention and lots of published materials that can be used to establish the standard of care,” she said.

However, Coffey noted that causation is often the more contentious issue.

A plaintiff “is going to need an expert to say, ‘If this precaution had been taken, he would not have gotten this infection.’”

In her case, for example, she was able to show that the patient’s IV site was red, tender and swollen, and that the IV had been left in for three days — contrary to CDC guidelines that say an ambulance IV should be switched to a new one upon arrival at the hospital.

She also argued that under CDC rules, the surgeon should have waited to perform heart surgery until the remote site infection cleared up.

Advising Health Care Providers

At a minimum, attorneys that represent hospitals should advise them to have policies on infection prevention, such as hand-hygiene policies. They should also require clinicians to be trained on preventing recontamination by not opening the privacy curtain once they are in surgical gloves.

The Joint Commission’s compendium contains strategies for hospitals to prioritize and address the most common and deadly infections, including central line associated blood stream infections, surgical site infections, urinary tract infections and MRSA.

But McCaughy said the compendium “set the bar too low.”

She suggests that attorneys advise hospitals to take stronger measures, such as penalizing those who violate hand-hygiene rules and screening incoming patients for MRSA.

McCaughy said hospitals and doctors are more likely to be sued over infections if they don’t implement proven methods to prevent them, such as using a back-up catheter treated with antibiotics to prevent central line blood stream infections. 

“Hospitals that fail to use these backup devices are inviting lawsuits, and surgeons who don’t ask hospitals to have these devices will be vulnerable,” she said.

But Coffey said that in most states, the standard of care is “not the very best of care, but … the ordinary care under the circumstances.”

“Until a lot of hospitals start doing these things, it would be difficult to get an expert to say this is what is ordinarily done,” she cautioned.