Chicago Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

Two recent malpractice lawsuits are bringing issues of care to the forefront.

From Bloomberg News, Laurence Viele Davidson reports on a $2.1 million settlement in Kentucky. An Army soldier, Staff Sgt. Adam Cloer, of Missouri, filed a claim over the treatment of his wife’s illness at a military hospital. The lawsuit claimed that the staff at the military hospital in Fort Campbell, Ky. ignored his wife’s symptoms and misdiagnosed her illness. The hospital neglected to screen Melodee Cloer for rectal cancer, despite her serious symptoms. Due to their negligence, Ms. Cloer’s cancer spread and after many subsequent surgeries, she died at the age of 53.

Insurance Journal covers another shocking story of malpractice out of West Virginia. Dorothy Douglas, who suffered from dementia and Parkinson’s disease, spent 20 days in a Carlyle Group nursing unit, HCR ManorCare Inc., before dying in a hospital. Her son Tom Douglas claims that Ms. Douglas suffered from dehydration and renal failure due to an understaffed and incompetent nursing facility. The nursing home will appeal to a $91.5 million verdict. Douglas’ lawyers had targeted the same facility the year before, winning a $1.5 million verdict.

These horrific stories are not consoling to someone thinking about placing a loved one under the care of a nursing facility or hospital. Picking the right facility to care for loved ones can be an extremely difficult decision; but, issues of neglect and lack of sufficient care should not have to be a worry. Nursing homes and hospitals must be held accountable for the type and quality of care they provide. Without demanding justice in the field of care, our loved ones will continue to suffer do to an air of unaccountability. As a Chicago nursing home and medical malpractice attorney, I am hopeful that in keeping these facilities on their toes, our loved ones will get the care and attention they deserve. Those who have been wronged due to medical malpractice should seek justice to ensure this right.

A report released Tuesday, May 17, by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services revealed the cause of recent sexual assaults at Chicago's Lakeshore Hospital to be inadequate staffing levels and a lack of supervision. This report is a follow-up to a September 2010 Chicago Tribune article that revealed four instances of alleged patient sexual assault at Chicago Lakeshore since 2008, and at least 14 other allegations of rape or sexual abuse of juveniles at Chicago-area psychiatric hospitals during that time.

Chicago Lakeshore has promised corrective action and disputes the findings, but according to the report, written by experts from the University of Illinois at Chicago, some units housing youths "continue to present unacceptable risks at times because of lax or inconsistent supervision by staff.

As a Chicago medical malpractice attorney, I have seen the devastating emotional effect that sexual abuse can have on a young person. It is the duty of the housing medical facility to ensure that all patients, especially the young and potentially helpless, are given a safe environment in which to receive treatment. This includes freedom from abuse by employees of the medical facility, or by fellow patients. I encourage all patients and those close to them to seek legal help if they have been subject to abuse as a result of inadequate medical care.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission “has sanctioned a doctor who performed nearly 100 botched prostate cancer procedures at Philadelphia's VA Medical Center.” (Philadelphia AP, 2/24). Previous blogs discuss the concerning pattern of medical care provided by Dr. Gary Kao, and as a personal injury and medical malpractice attorney in Chicago, I am pleased that some form of justice has been served on the doctor.

The NRC says “Dr. Gary Kao cannot take part in agency-related activities without undergoing more training,” after finding that Dr. Kao was responsible for 91 botches procedures in which veterans received incorrect dosages of radioactive seeds implanted to kill cancer cells in the prostate. Many patients received doses that were insufficient, but had seeds implanted carelessly in nearby organs and surrounding tissues.

Last year, the NRC fined the VA hospital $227,500 and now are imposing sanctions on Dr. Kao. Although this is certainly a step, Dr. Kao’s carelessness should not be forgotten and he should be monitored further to ensure patient safety.

A DuPage County jury recently “awarded $11.5 million to a Bolingbrook woman who lost her unborn baby and her small intestine because of negligence by staff at Edward Hospital in Naperville.” (Chicago Tribune, Serena Maria Daniels, 10/27). The mother, a 30 year old woman, had been taken to the hospital in November of 2004 complaining of abdominal pains. At that time, she was 14 weeks pregnant and was admitted to the postpartum units where “nurses failed to monitor her deteriorating condition and that of her unborn baby.”

Despite being warned of the mother’s prior medical condition of a twisted intestine, it took several hours for medical personnel to move her into the intensive care unit. During that time, she lost consciousness, and by the time the problem was discovered both her small intestine and her baby were past the point of saving.

After a small intestine transplant, the mother will likely face major medical challenges for the remainder of her life, and with all the additional risk factors, it is unlikely she can ever have a natural child. As Chicago medical malpractice lawyers, we are happy that this family received just compensation for their grave loss.

Continue reading "$11.5 million awarded to Chicago woman who lost unborn baby in negligence lawsuit" »

Congressional investigators say “cancer patients sent home after treatment with radioactive iodine have contaminated hotel rooms and set off alarms on public transportation.” (Washington AP, 10/20).

According to reports, these patients have come into close contact with “vulnerable people, including pregnant women and children, and the household trash from their homes has triggered radiation detectors at landfills.”

Some attribute this to a decision by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reduce requirements for the amount of days that a thyroid cancer patient must stay in the hospital after ingesting radioactive iodine to reduce tumor size. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set to meet shortly to examine this issue. As a medical malpractice attorney, I am hopeful that the commission will act quickly and increase the requirement for extended stays in the hospital to ensure the safety of those around thyroid cancer patients, especially the most vulnerable.

Continue reading "Alarms set off by radiation from thyroid cancer patients" »

The Chicago Based Council for Graduate Medical Education announced this week that its board has approved new rules, and “Sleep-deprived rookie doctors will be getting shorter work shifts, along with stricter supervision.” (Chicago AP, 9/29).

Council CEO Thomas Nasca says, “the new rules aim to ensure patient safety and a humanistic learning environment for doctors-in-training.”

As a result of the rules that take effect next July, maximum work shifts for first-year residents will be decreased from 24 hours to 16 hours, although the 80 hour work week limitation remains. Medical residents are also required to tell patients that other, more experienced doctors are supervising them.

As a medical malpractice attorney in Chicago, I am pleased to see that patient safety is being taken into consideration.

As a medical malpractice attorney I am astonished by the following Chicago Tribune story. A shocking number of doctors are aware that their colleagues are not safely practicing due to drug and alcohol addictions but keep it to themselves.

A new survey “finds that many American physicians fail to report troubled colleagues to authorities, believing that someone else will take care of it, that nothing will happen if they act or that they could be targeted for retribution.” (Chicago Tribune, Carla K. Johnson, 7/13). The results are based on a 2009 survey of 1,891 practicing physicians in the United States.
A mind blowing 17 percent of the doctors surveyed had direct, personal knowledge of an impaired or incompetent physician in their workplaces. A third of those doctors had not reported their knowledge to either the hospital board or the medical board of the state, leaving many dangerous physicians still practicing.

The American Medical Association and other professional groups say “doctors have an ethical obligation to make such reports. And many states require doctors to tell authorities about colleagues who endanger patients because of alcoholism, drug abuse or mental illness.” Despite ethical and statutory requirements, far too many incidents go unreported.

As a medical malpractice lawyer, I am horrified by the following story. Each year medical negligence costs too many lives, and this sad story is just one among many very disheartening examples.

The family of a “28-year-old British woman who was a cystic fibrosis sufferer and unknowingly received a lung transplant from a smoker says she would have been "horrified" and have lodged a complaint.” (London AP, 6/15). Unfortunately, she passed of pneumonia just a few months after the faulty transplant.

Britain's top transplant official Chris Rudge even defended the transplant asserting that patients know they are not getting “brand new” lungs. He further asserted on the BBC that "lungs from a smoker can be working perfectly normally." While it is true that transplanted organs are obviously not new, transplanting lungs into a cystic fibrosis patient from a long time smoker is absurd.

The victims family is not lobbying for patients to be more thoroughly informed about organ donors before accepting a transplant.

Another medical problem facing the U.S. occurs because “Americans increasingly are treated to death, spending more time in hospitals in their final days, trying last-ditch treatments that often buy only weeks of time, and racking up bills that have made medical care a leading cause of bankruptcies.” (M. Marchione, AP Medical 6/28).
Although upwards of 80 percent of people who die in the U.S. have long-term, progressive illnesses and more then 80 percent of these patients say they would to avoid hospitalization when they know they are dying but rather enjoy their last days, the number speak otherwise. The mentality of medical providers appears to be to try everything, spending endless amounts of money, even when it is futile. Patient’s families feel as though they are not presented with any options other than continued treatment – a phenomenon called “exhaustive medicine”. Thus, dying patients die in hospitals after excruciating treatments rather than being able to live out their last days with their families.

For example, “a stunning number of cancer patients get aggressive care in the last days of their lives, she noted. One large study of Medicare records found that nearly 12 percent of cancer patients who died in 1999 received chemo in the last two weeks of life, up from nearly 10 percent in 1993.”

Although Doctor’s cannot be expected to predict how soon a patient will die with certainty, they are generally able to recognize when a disease has become incurable. When medical efforts become futile, it is best to allow patients to leave the confines of medical care and expire with their families.

As a medical malpractice attorney, I am hopeful that medical guidelines will be amended to remove exhaustive medicine from medical protocol and allow patients to enjoy their last days with the people they love, rather than the hospital that has, ultimately, failed to cure them.

Harmful errors in radiation given to 97 veterans with prostate cancer at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center have been in the news for months, but this week the Department of Veterans Affairs was fined $227,500 as a result of these egregious errors. (Philadelphia AP, J. Lobiglio, 3/17). The fine is “the second largest it has ever levied for medical errors,” and “the VA was cited for lacking procedures to ensure and verify the treatments were done correctly, failing to properly train staff and neglecting to immediately report mistakes.”

The victims underwent brachytherapy, a common surgical treatment typically used only on law-risk prostate cancer patients, which involves implanting tiny radioactive iodine pellets, in the prostate to kill cancer cells. After reviewing medical records and conducting tests on the 116 veterans who underwent the procedure between 2002 and 2008, officials concluded that 97 had received incorrect dosages of radiation.
As a medical malpractice attorney, I have continuously been disturbed by the medical negligence that harmed 97 veterans in this situation. I am, however, pleased that the VA was hit with the second largest fine for these careless and harmful errors.

The LA Times reports, “Firms that supply temporary nurses to the nation's hospitals are taking perilous shortcuts in their screening and supervision, sometimes putting seriously ill patients in the hands of incompetent or impaired caregivers” (12/6, Weber and Ornstein).

The problem is worsened by nursing shortages and lacksidasical regulation, but the temporary firms “have become havens for nurses who hopscotch from place to place to avoid the consequences of their misconduct. An investigation by the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica and the Los Angeles Times found dozens of instances in which staffing agencies skimped on background checks or ignored warnings from hospitals about sub-par nurses on their payrolls. Some hired nurses sight unseen, without even conducting an interview.”

Nurses with documented poor history who are rehired by another unsuspecting organization subject ill people to the perils of their recurring bad habits, including charting drug administration to patients, but stealing the pain killers for personal use.

As a Chicago attorney who has experience with similar medical negligence cases, I am saddened by this phenomenon. Although some places are more diligent than others about checking their nurse’s backgrounds prior to hiring them, those who don’t subject innocent patients to careless, irresponsible, and malicious behavior, which gives the entire industry a bad reputation.

The Colorado Spring Gazette (7/2) reports, “Federal officials Thursday warned that about 5,700 surgery patients, including 1,000 at a Colorado Springs surgery center, are at risk of having been infected by an operating room technician with hepatitis C,” because the surgery tech admitted to swapping her dirty syringes filled with saline for syringes filled with Feltanyl, a narcotic that is 100 times stronger than morphine. She was a former heroine addict who admitted that she was virtually positive she had previously been exposed to Hepatitis C years before.

Hundreds of surgery patients got only saline and exposure to Hepatitis C instead of pain killers during post operative care, while the surgery tech injected herself with their painkillers both at home and in hospital bathrooms before surgery. She was discovered when another surgery tech reported her for being in an operating room to which she was not assigned. She was then tested for drugs and tested positive for Feltanyl.

The Colorado hospital released statements expressing their apologies and extreme sorrow for the infected patients and their families. The hospital is offering free testing to surgery patients, and has set up a phone help line for patients and their families. Unfortunately, exposure to the Hepatitis C virus, for which there is no vaccine, can lead to extremely severe consequences including but not limited to chronic liver disease and cirrhosis. Between 75 to 85 percent of those who contract Hepatitis C will develop chronic infection. Hepatitis C is responsible for between 8,000 and 10,000 deaths per year in the United States.

As a medical malpractice lawyer, it is my opinion that this horrible situation could have and should have been avoided. Even a simple check of her myspace page would have revealed that she has a “crazy fascination with needles” because she “just like[s] the way they feel.” Moreover, a recovering heroin addict is certainly not some one that should be permitted to handle strong narcotics, and such drugs should be carefully monitored within the hospital.

Rosanne M. Leipsig, a physician and professor of Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, published an article in the New York Times (7/1) commenting on the fact that “American medical schools require no training in geriatric medicine,” even though elderly patients make up a substantial component of all patients for which graduating doctors will care. She and some of her colleagues published a “Don’t kill Granny” checklist in the Journal of Academic Medicine, which laid out the basic requirements all graduating medical students should demonstrate in caring for elderly patients.

All doctors in training are “required to have clinical experiences in pediatrics and obstetrics, even though after they graduate most will never treat a child or deliver a baby. Yet there is no requirement for any clinical training in geriatrics, even though patients 65 and older account for 32 percent of the average doctor’s workload in surgical care, 43 percent in medical specialty care, and they make up 48 percent of all inpatient hospital days. Medicare…contributes more than $8 billion a year to support residency training, yet it does not require that part of that training focus on the unique health care needs of older adults.”

For Example, an experienced doctor needs to be aware that a 50-year-old body will respond differently than an 80-year-old body to both illness and medication. “Pneumonia in a 50-year-old causes fever, cough and difficulty breathing; an 80-year-old with the same illness may have none of these symptoms, but just seem ‘not herself’ - confused and unsteady, unable to get out of bed.” Not only are the symptoms different by age, but also the dosage of medication; a 50-year-old body can handle nearly twice as much medication as an 80-year-old body. Over prescribing medication to any patient, but especially one who is elderly, can cause severe kidney damage with long-term health consequences.

As a medical malpractice lawyer with experience in cases dealing with elderly care, I support a geriatric care requirement in medical schools. As the baby boomers get older, geriatric care is only going to become more important.

The Washington Post reports (AP, 6/20), “staff members at a Brooklyn hospital falsified medical records and lied to authorities in an attempt to cover up the neglect of a patient who died on the waiting room floor.” Esmin Green, age 49, suffered for almost 24 hours in a psychiatric emergency room at the Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York before collapsing from a blood clot.

According to witnesses and waiting room camera footage, Ms. Green was lying “on the floor for an hour, in full view of nurses, doctors, and security guards, before a nurse nudged her body with her foot, then checked her pulse. By then she was dead.” 6 hospital employees lost their jobs in connection with this incident, and some may face criminal charges.

Shortly after Ms. Green died, a senior nurse at the hospital made three falsified entries in the medical records “to make it appear as though she had been checking regularly on her patient.” Security camera footage confirmed that these entries were in fact false. A nurse’s aid separately falsified the record claiming “he had observed Ms. Green asleep during the hour when she was actually lying face down on the floor dying.” Both later admitted to authorities that the records were false.

As a medical malpractice lawyer in Chicago, I am deeply disturbed by the events leading up to the death of Esmin Green. I am hopeful that the legal proceedings in this case will ensure that such careless actions by hospital staff are never repeated.

Medicare threatens to revoke University of Chicago Medical Center's certification after patient's death.
The AP (3/28, Robinson) reported, "Medicare officials are threatening to take away the University of Chicago Medical Center's certification after the death of a man who sat in the emergency room for hours without being logged in, a center spokesman said." The patient's "wheelchair was parked within sight of the triage desk for 'a few hours' but...he was neither triaged nor logged in." He was later "pronounced dead" after his "daughter finally brought him to attention of the triage nurse." In a letter to the center, the federal government warned that "the center's Medicare certification could be lifted," but the spokesman stated that "such a warning was standard whenever such an incident took place."

"The Joint Commission, the major accreditor of US hospitals...said it was investigating the incident," the Chicago Tribune (3/28, Japsen) noted. The hospital claimed that an investigation by the Illinois Department of Health on Feb. 18 "found proper policies and procedures were in place but that staff members may not have followed the protocol." But, the letter indicated that "the hospital failed to 'maintain a central emergency services log' and 'provide a medical screening exam.'"

Hospital infections are on the rise and so are lawsuits that claim medical malpractice caused the infections. The Wisconsin Law Journal recently reported that "A new type of med-mal lawsuit is on the increase -- claims based on hospital infections." According to the Law Journal, "Plaintiffs' attorneys say that hospitals can no longer argue that these infections are inevitable."

Betsy McCaughy, founder and chair of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, said, "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."

Sadly, most of these infections can be prevented through stricter sanitary and bacterial testing procedures.

Continue reading "Hospital infection lawsuits on the rise" »

A Chicago transplant patient filed a medical negligence suit this week against the University of Chicago Medical Center and one of its surgeons, alleging that she contracted HIV and hepatitis C after receiving a kidney from an infected donor.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the hospital knew that the donor, who was homosexual, was in a high-risk group but withheld the information from the patient. According to the lawsuit, had the patient known of the true nature of the donor's lifestyle and the risks associated with receiving his kidney, she would not have consented to the surgery.

Four transplant recipients contracted HIV from the donor, whose infection went undetected in what hospital officials say is the first documented case of the virus being transmitted by organ donation in the U.S. in more than 20 years. Tests conducted on the donor returned negative results probably because the HIV and hepatitis were contracted near the time of death and hadn't had the opportunity to progress. The suit charges medical malpractice for failing to notify the woman of the donor's high-risk behavior and for failing to test her for HIV three months after the transplant—which is recommended by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention when organs are donated by high-risk donors.

Continue reading "Patient sues Chicago Hospital, doctor for contracting HIV and hepatitis from infected kidney donor" »

A recent wrongful death case involving claims that a doctor failed to diagnose prostate cancer settled for $875,000. The decedent’s estate claimed a hospital and treating physician failed to perform annual prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing in the two years before the diagnosis.

The facts alleged that the plaintiff underwent regular annual physicals. But, when he was 52, he underwent a digital rectal exam and was then diagnosed as having metastatic prostate cancer. He underwent treatment but died six months after his diagnosis. He was survived by his wife and two adult children. The parties settled before suit was filed.

Continue reading "Failure to perform timely PSA tests leads parties to settle wrongful death case for $875,000" »

The families of two newborns who died after they were inadvertently given massive doses of Heparin have sued an Indianapolis hospital and the Illinois-based company, Baxter Healthcare Corp., that makes the blood thinner.

The Chicago Tribune reports that parents of two of the three newborns who died in September 2006 filed suit after injections of heparin that were 1,000 times greater than the recommended dose for infants were administered. Also suing are the parents of two infants who were overdosed but survived. The error occurred in part because of a mix up over labeling, which Baxter changed in October 2007.

Baxter recalled all its heparin vials in February after receiving contaminated ingredients from a supplier, Baxter officials said.

Continue reading "Hospital and Illinois Drug Company sued for Heparin overdoes" »

Shaya Tayefe Mohajer of the Associated Press recently reported that 18 hospitals in California were fined for state health code violations where patients received sub-par care that in some cases, led to death. Violations included an improperly inserted catheter, a ventilator that wasn't turned on and surgical sponges left inside patients after operations. The report also found some patients experienced awareness during their procedures due to improper anesthesia.

The fines were the latest of dozens of penalties the state issued in recent years to more than 40 hospitals. The report detailed a death at a hospital in which a worker failed to turn on the ventilator for a patient who was being transferred. At another hospital, a patient died after falling from a wheelchair with no seat belt on, and another of the fined hospitals lost a patient from a medication overdose. In what appears to be an epidemic of poor healthcare, at another hospital, a registered nurse improperly inserted a catheter into a patient's neck vein, which caused an air bubble and lead to the patient’s death. The California Department of Health investigation found the nurse had not completed a required anatomy class or the hospital's training on protocol for catheters.

The hospitals were fined $25,000 for each violation. If you have questions relating to medical malpractice please contact the Illinois Medical Malpractice Attorneys at Hurley McKenna & Mertz, P.C.