… A 34-year-old mother of two young boys and an infant daughter was admitted to a local hospital with a severe headache.  On the third day of her admission, she was still in severe pain when her husband reported to the medical staff what appeared to be a seizure.  Although the woman became unresponsive, hours went by before a neurology resident examined her. When the woman finally had a CT scan of her brain, they found that she had a bleeding stroke. She had brain surgery but was left with devastating injuries.  After several years of litigation, the case settled for a significant sum after a jury was selected. … [Read more...]

… a 61-year-old woman had a total knee replacement.  She went to her dentist’s office the following year for a teeth cleaning.  According to the American Dental Association, patients with total joint replacements should be premedicated with antibiotics during the first two years.  Although the dentist was aware of the knee replacement, he failed to premedicate her with antibiotics.  After the cleaning, an infection set into her artificial knee causing its removal.  She was without a knee for several months until she could have a second knee replacement.  The dentist’s insurance company eventually settled with the woman after several … [Read more...]

…  A 60-year-old homemaker had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a thickening of the walls of the heart. This condition is often undiagnosed and is a common cause of sudden heart attack in young people, including young athletes.  Surgery was performed to thin the walls of her heart.  During this sophisticated surgery, the surgeon, who had insufficient experience, unintentionally created a hole between the heart chambers. Although the hole was promptly repaired, the woman later died after three months of hospitalization.   … [Read more...]

… A 29-year-old mother felt ill as she was getting ready for work.  She phoned her father. While on the phone, she became unresponsive.  An ambulance was called and she was rushed to a local trauma center. Although she was having all the signs of a stroke, there was no sense of urgency.  She eventually received the necessary treatment, including a clot-busting drug called tPA, but the opportunity for a good recovery was lost.  She now uses a wheelchair and still has significant speech and vision problems.  The case was settled after jury selection, with the settlement funds used, in part, to buy a house to be remodeled for handicapped … [Read more...]

… A 60-year-old maintenance supervisor in a steel mill was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart rate.  He had an echocardiogram, which uses sound waves to produce images of the heart. The images should have alerted his doctors to a more serious problem.  A cardiac catheterization and biopsy would have diagnosed his underlying problem: cardiac amyloidosis.  By the time the diagnosis was made, it was too late for possibly life-saving treatment.  The man died, survived by his widow and adult children.  The case settled after a lawsuit was filed and discovery completed.   … [Read more...]

…  A 77 year old widow was being prepared to be sent home from the hospital.  She was placed on a narrow table to insert a catheter (PICC line) in her arm so medications could be given to her at home.  The technician wasn’t paying attention and the widow fell off the table onto the floor.  She broke her shoulder and a bone in her face.  The hospital settled the lawsuit on the eve of trial.   … [Read more...]

… A 37-year-old woman was having her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed.  Medical Residents were doing the surgery using a laparascope.  The attending physician was supervising.  The doctors were having difficulty identifying the woman’s important organs because there were dense adhesions from an earlier hysterectomy.   They partially identified the left ureter, which is a tube that carries urine from the left kidney to the bladder. Assuming that the ureter was out of the way, they continued to burn and cut the tissue, burning and cutting the left ureter.  The woman had multiple surgeries to repair the left ureter, but was left with chronic … [Read more...]