Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog

A medical malpractice lawsuit was recently filed on behalf of a family who lost their 22-month old daughter as a result of medical negligence. In May 2007, the child was taken to a hospital’s emergency room with a fever. Within an hour of being at the hospital, her temperature rose to 105.7 degrees. Despite this rise, the attending doctor in the emergency room sent her home. The family returned to the emergency room where the child died less than an hour after arriving at the hospital. The lawsuit alleges that the attending physician was negligent because he deviated from the standard of care by sending the family home. Instead, tests should have been run to measure her blood counts. To read more about this medical malpractice lawsuit, follow the link.

A lawyer won $7.5 million for her client whose doctor “failed to correctly diagnose and treat a hospital infection that led to gangrene in both his arms and legs.” The patient originally went to the hospital for ulcer treatment but then had to have his limbs amputated from his doctor’s negligence. The infection the patient had contracted was methicillin - resistant Staphylcoccus Aureus which is a common infection found in hospitals. Although the patient informed the doctors at the hospital of his symptoms that were clearly MRSA signs, they failed to diagnose him.

Read more about the lawsuit here.

The failure to diagnose acute appendicitis is one of the most common medical mistakes leading to medical malpractice lawsuits. As many as 30% of patients with acute appendicitis were initially misdiagnosed by a physician at a pervious medical examination. The most common diagnosis in missed appendicitis cases is Agastroenteritis. Delayed or missed diagnosis of acute appendicitis can have serious consequences including death, recurrent small bowel obstruction, impaired fertility in women, and extended hospital stays. Acute appendicitis should be considered a possible diagnosis with all complaints of abdominal pain. For the full article, click here.

Closing arguments were heard in the medical malpractice trial involving the death of a high school student while under the care of an orthopedic surgeon. The trial presented uncontested facts that the girl underwent arthroscopic knee surgery in early April of 2004. Near the end of that month the girl’s physical therapist noted that the girl had swelling in one calf and that she complained of pain, yet the orthopedic surgeon did not note the inflammation or order any special tests to rule out such possibilities as a blood clot. Three days later, the girl died of massive pulmonary embolism from a blood clot. The state’s medical review panel could not conclude whether there was medical malpractice. The jury is currently deliberating on the medical malpractice trial. To read the full story, click here.

Recent reviews have found there are an abundance of cancer treatment errors found at various clinics throughout the United States, especially in outpatient clinics. In 1,400 patient charts that were examined, a total of 117 errors were found. 15 caused harm to patients while 64 errors had the potential to cause harm, according to the article. The study showed 60% of the errors associated with adult cases were due to administration of treatment. 64% of the pediatric errors was linked to the ordering of medication.

For the full story, click here.

Doctors found that women who were overweight or obese and underwent breast surgery were more likely to develop lymphedema, a chronic condition of painful swelling in the arm or shoulder area. According to Doctor Jane Armer, diagnosis of lymphedema can be difficult. She also said it “often goes undiagnosed and untreated by physicians and patients.”

For the full story, click here.

A state medical board has reprimanded and fined a physician at a hospital in connection with a 2004 case in which a 40-year-old woman died while awaiting discharged. The woman came to the emergency room complaining of pain that she described as an “elephant sitting on [her] chest.” The doctor ordered standard lab work, a chest X ray and an EKG. The patient appeared to be improving, but then “experienced ventricular fibrillation” and died. A board-appointed peer reviewer found that the doctor’s actions failed to conform to minimum standards both as to diagnosis and to treatment. The doctor will be fined $5,000 and complete 15 hours of additional continuing medical education. The doctor will also pay $400 to the board as reimbursement of administrative fees and agree that a consent order will be placed on his physician profile. This is yet another example of how medical malpractice leads to a wrongful death. To read the full story, click here.

A lawsuit against an allegedly negligent hospital and negligent surgeon comes after a death post-surgery. A 39 year old woman died after gastric bypass surgery, she is survived by her husband who claims that the hospital was negligent by failing to monitor the patient and by doing surgery when the patient was not a good candidate for it. A lawsuit has been filed for both the personal injuries sustained by the patient before her death and also for damages that the family has suffered after the death in the hospital. The medical malpractice lawsuit claims that both the doctor and hospital were negligent in the surgery and treatment of the patient. To read the full story click here.

A medical malpractice lawsuit has resulted in a multi-million dollar medical malpractice award for a widow whose husband died as a result of a hospital’s negligence. The death in the hospital came as a result when the patient, a 49 year old male, was not properly monitored by hospital personnel. Although the settlement has resulted in a large medical malpractice settlement it is likely that due to caps on settlements the widow will not be able to obtain the full amount. The wrongful death and negligence suit against the hospital may cause the hospital to closely monitor and supervise patients in the future but for one couple the money will not be able to bring back their lives together. To read the full story click here.

Levin & Perconti has filed a medical malpractice and wrongful death lawsuit for the death of baby Kaylee Persky in Champaign County, Illinois. Kaylee was a patient at the Carle Foundation Hospital where the hospital and its staff failed to monitor her medical condition. She died at age 20 months on August 31, 2006. Jeffrey E. Martin, a partner at the firm, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Kaylee’s surviving family members.

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A multimillion dollar settlement has been reached in a wrongful death action against a medical center. A hospital patient died after she drowned in the shower at the hospital because of a failure to supervise the patient’s condition and ability to shower by herself. The medical malpractice suit also alleged that the hospital was negligent by altering medical records, failing to supervise its patients and tampering with evidence. The five million dollar medical malpractice lawsuit will never however be able to bring back the patient whose wrongful death left her family facing tragedy. To read the full story click here.

Levin & Perconti has filed a medical malpractice and wrongful death lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County on behalf of Devron Matthews’s family after his recent death. The suit was filed on July 24, 2008.

On August 19, 2007, Devron, a known asthmatic, was taken to the emergency room at Weiss Hospital on Chicago’s north side for complaints of shortness of breath and a high fever. Despite being diagnosed with pneumonia and having a dangerous blood gas reading, Devron was not monitored properly, and his breathing status deteriorated throughout the morning. He was transferred from the Emergency Room to a non acute setting in an unstable condition. Devron went into respiratory failure and suffered a full cardiopulmonary arrest in the morning hours of August 29, 2007. During this time, his brain was deprived of oxygen and he sustained permanent brain damage.

Devron was placed life support and remained in intensive care as a result of his brain damage. After intensive care, he continued to exist in a vegetative state, always in nursing or hospital care, until his death on May 2, 2008 at age 20. Devron is survived directly by his two sisters and his mother.

A west coast man has settled his medical malpractice lawsuit against a hospital. The $5 million settlement will help to compensate him for a lifetime of 24 hour care that he now needs. When he entered the hospital with a fever and cough, doctors diagnosed him with acute renal failure. He was given increasing doses of sedatives and claims that he was not monitored by the hospital staff, leading him to suffer cardio-respiratory failure and be down for nine minutes. The man suffered an anoxic brain injury, meaning that his brain was deprived of oxygen, which causes severe brain damage.

Read more here.

A study in the May issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery shows that the rate of limb amputation is higher in Chicago’s black communities than in suburban white communities. The data showed that blacks in Chicago are five times more likely to have a limb amputated than suburban whites. Notably, many amputations are preventable. Limb amputations can often be the product of low quality health care and doctor errors, poor access to health care resources, and a doctor's failure to give information about procedures and treatments. One of the more common causes of amputations is untreated pressure sores that may result from diabetes and heart disease.

Read the news story here.

One of the greatest organizational problems facing hospitals today is the battle over medical records. Many patients find that it can take months or years to get a hold of their own medical records after treatment. Even worse, some families of victims of medical malpractice or wrongful death have waited for years to obtain their loved one’s medical records from hospitals. Often, lost or missing records are simply part of hospital error and not a deliberate attempt to delay, but on some occasions hospitals may frustrate a patient’s records request purposefully. Patients and victims’ families must be aware that statutes of limitation often require that medical malpractice lawsuits be filed within a certain period of time after the injury occurs or is discovered. This means that patients and victims’ families must decide to file a medical malpractice lawsuit and contact their medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible and begin the medical records request process.

Read more here.

The Department of Health and Human Services recently released its patient survey where hospital patients rate their experiences and patient care in a format much like a restaurant guide.

The survey showed some troubling results for Chicago area hospitals including some reports of patient dissatisfaction and hospital care statistics that need serious attention. For instance, four out of ten Illinois hospital patients responding to the survey indicated that they had to wait longer than expected when they needed help or called for assistance. Nearly one third of Illinois hospital patients felt that the hospital did not manage their pain properly. Additionally, only 57% of hospital patients thought that the hospital’s staff properly explained the benefits and risks of medication before administering it.

The Department of Health and Human Services plans to make this survey mandatory for every US hospital; though the survey was voluntary in 2007, the Department will reduce Medicare funding for hospitals that do not participate in the survey.

Read the full news story here, and access the survey here.

According to a recent HealthGrades study of patient care in hospitals, the past three years of medical errors have cost the Medicare system more than $8.8 billion dollars. Additionally, the study found that hospital safety problems caused 238,337 preventable deaths to patients. Bed sores, failure to rescue, and respiratory failure were the most common cause of preventable death, affecting nearly 2 out of 3 patients. Other preventable malpractice errors included foreign bodies left in the patient during a procedure, anesthesia errors, hospital infections, and accidental lacerations.

For the full story, click here.

A new study published in the journal Pediatrics shows that about 1 in 15 children are harmed each year by medication dosing errors at hospitals. The study revealed that children are harmed by dosing errors and incorrect medication substantially more often than previously thought. The study also revealed that some of these dosing errors and patient injuries could be prevented easily.

Medication dosing errors in children are the central issue in popular actor Dennis Quaid’s lawsuit in Chicago against Deerfield, Illinois-based Baxter Healthcare. Quaid is suing Baxter, a large pharmaceutical manufacturer, after Quaid’s baby twins received a Heparin overdose. The medical malpractice lawsuit is pending before Judge Quinn in the Circuit Court of Cook County.

The full text of the Pediatrics study is available here.

Preventable deaths, injuries, and illnesses have been found to be caused by emergency room delays. ER waiting times have increased from 22 minutes in 1997 to 30 minutes in 2004. Heart attack patients are exposed to more serious dangers as their wait time has doubled on average, but the risks caused by delay are great. In a study in the journal Health Affairs, 1/4 of heart attack patients had to wait 50 minutes or more before getting treatment.

The lack of universal health insurance in America, as well as the closure of emergency rooms around the country have contributed to the overflowing waiting rooms where patients may wait dangerous amounts of time. People without healthcare insurance are often forced to visit emergency rooms for free care, regardless of urgency.

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A lawsuit has been filed against a county medical examiner, paramedics, and county Emergency Medical Services after a man who was declared dead at the scene of an automobile accident but was found to be alive hours later sustained permanent injuries. Paramedics responded to calls after the car accident but negligently failed to check the man's vital signs properly not noticing his faintly beating heart. The paramedics made a further medical mistake when they failed to use monitors to check the status of the victim and when they failed to make resuscitation efforts even though it is mandated by policy. The medical examiner is being accused of medical malpractice in that he disregarded signs that the man was still alive, such as eye twitching and chest movements, for hours after the accident. The medical examiner has claimed that it was not his job to determine whether the victim was alive or dead. The man suffered a severe head injury along with a broken leg and other injuries. Now five months after the accident, the victim is just learning how to speak again. He might never fully recover as he would have if treated properly. The man's mother witnessed the accident and suffered severe trauma and distress when she was told that her son was dead.

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A $22 million verdict was recently awarded in a Cook County, Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit. The jury ruled that the hospital was negligent during the birth of a 34-year-old woman's son in that staff did not properly treat difficulties with the woman's blood pressure. The woman went to an Evanston hospital two weeks before her scheduled date of delivery due to complaints of severe headache and abdominal discomfort. Medical staff soon noticed that the woman had unusually high blood pressure. Tests eventually showed that she had HELLP syndrome, meaning that she had a low platelet count and elevated liver enzymes, or hemolytic anemia. Attorneys alleged that she was not treated properly for this problem, by being given the wrong amounts of medication at the wrong times. Her son was successfully delivered by cesarean section, but the woman's blood pressure rose and she suffered a major brain hemorrhage, dying four days later. The jury found that hospital staff was negligent and that she was irreplaceable to her son and husband, ultimately awarding the multi-million dollar verdict.

Click here for the full article

Illinois is one of the few states where the National Nurses Organizing Committee has sponsored a proposed bill to impose mandatory nurse to patient ratios. California has been experimenting with a hospital staffing law with revolutionary results in recent years. The improvement in patient safety has been drastic. The ratios are a minimum standard; hospitals are encouraged to go above and beyond the mandate. The ratios differ by hospital area, but none are higher than 1 RN for every five patients in general units or patients in post-surgical care, 1:4 for pediatric units and in the emergency room.

The important results of the law are plentiful, according to a member of the NNOC's Council of Presidents. "Lives are being saved, our ability to be effective advocates for our patients is stronger, and more RNs are entering the work force and staying at the bedside longer, mitigating the nursing shortage." A nurse explained that because they have more time to dedicate to individual patients they have time to check patients' charts and maintain records, preventing treatment delays and medical mistakes, and that there is more time to teach patients and families about their situation so that they won't have to return to the hospital for any complications.

Click here for the full article

Continue reading "To improve patient safety in hospitals, Illinois needs to implement a nurse to patient ratio law " »

In a recent medical malpractice lawsuit, a birth injury that was allegedly caused by a nurse-doctor communication breakdown yielded a $1.2 million settlement. Nurses were concerned that the birth was taking too long, but were hesitant to consult the doctor about these fears due to his reputation of angry responses to perceived criticism. The infant developed cerebral palsy.

Physicians too commonly react harshly to instances where they feel bothered by the nursing staff, such as late-night clarification requests, difficulties with procedures, changes in patient condition and more. The negative consequences of verbal abuse or disruption in hospitals are significant; reduced communication, team collaboration, information transfer and concentration are all reported as responses to disruptive behavior. Patient safety is compromised in many ways by these reported breakdowns. Medical errors increase in disruptive or abusive situations and the quality of care decreases. Patient mortality increases with these outbursts. Medication errors have also been caused by verbally abusive hospital staff relations.

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Continue reading "Hospital conduct leads to reduced patient safety and medical malpractice lawsuits" »

A $4.5 million medical malpractice award was recently made in Illinois following the wrongful death of a woman infected with AIDS. Because the woman was being treated at a federal clinic, the case was tried under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The doctors at the Chicago clinic allegedly failed to recognize the complaints and symptoms of the patient which would have led to the diagnosis of lactic acidosis, a potentially fatal side-effect of some HIV/AIDS treatment drugs. The woman's lawyers contended that had the diagnosis been made earlier, the patient would have survived.

A wrongful death lawsuit is being contemplated by the family of a man who died of a "medical related" cause while an inmate in a jail. The investigation is still continuing; the coroner's report said that the death was caused by medical reasons, implying negligence. The 27-year-old inmate was found dead in his cell. His family said that the man was sick but didn't receive help. According to the inmate's girlfriend she tried to get the man medical assistance but the jail said it was only a cold and refused to help. The man's mother said that in addition to the wrongful death and medical neglect accusations in the lawsuit, she is also hoping to send a message to prisons so that no inmates ever have to go through her pain.

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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced officially that beginning in October 2008 expenses incurred from medical mistakes made by health care providers will no longer be eligible for reimbursement. Providers will also be prohibited from charging patients for these expenses. Private insurers will likely follow suit. Medical malpractice is a pervasive problem for health care in Illinois and in America as a whole. Each year, 1.5 million patients are injured and thousands die from medical errors. The expenses resulting from these mistakes add up, averaging about $29 billion in additional care services and loss of productivity. It is yet to be determined how CMS will determine what the appropriate standard of care is, and it will also have to define "preventable errors" in cases of medical malpractice.

The wife of an Illinois man who bled to death after routine surgery at Downstate VA Hospital in southern Illinois recently began filing a lawsuit against the US Department of Veteran Affairs. A surgeon, who was barred from practicing in another state, was the doctor caring for that Illinois patient. The doctor had been accused of causing life-threatening complications and deaths by providing "grossly substandard care" and making repeated medical mistakes. Downstate VA Hospital in southern Illinois suspended inpatient surgeries shortly after the man bled to death in response to an increasing amount of post-surgical deaths. The hospital serves veterans in southern Illinois and other nearby areas in other states. The surgeon who spurred the chain of events had been linked to deaths all over the country. A surgical error caused a death after the doctor caused a blood infection and respiratory failure by allowing a stitch to dislodge in a man's esophagus. On another occasion he mistakenly put stitches in a patient's bladder during a hernia repair causing years of pain. He made misdiagnoses, delayed diagnoses, and used improper surgical methods, all leading to unnecessary surgeries, pain, and hospitalizations. The list does not stop there. The State of Illinois continued his license after learning it was revoked in another state. It was not difficult to find his record status even if the state hadn't been alerted. The Illinois VA hospital was responsible for a mortality rate over four times the normal amount. The barred surgeon was involved in all of them.

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A medical malpractice lawsuit was recently settled for over $1.5 million on behalf of the family of a 37-year-old Illinois man who died of a heart problem resulting from the negligence of his doctor. The man died only days before a follow-up appointment was scheduled with his doctor. Unfortunately, during previous visits the doctor failed to perform the necessary tests to monitor the health of the man, who suffered from cardiac sarcoidosis. The tests the doctor should have performed include a Holter monitor test, an echocardiogram and a Thallium stress test. The doctor also failed to properly treat the patient, by neglecting to install an implantable defibrillator to regulate the man's heart rhythm.

A Cook County, Illinois jury recently awarded the family of a victim of medical malpractice $7,000,000. The victim died of a pulmonary embolism after knee surgery at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. The man's wife alleged that the negligence of a doctor and a physician's assistant caused the untimely death of her husband. The health care providers failed to review the patient's records, overlooking a medical history of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. As a result, the Illinois man was not administered the proper medication in a timely manner, allowing the formation of blood clots and allowing other blood clots to continue growing. This medical mistake ultimately led to the patient's wrongful death.

The family of a woman who died as a result of medical malpractice was recently awarded $5,200,000 by a Cook County, Illinois jury. The woman, who was treated at Palos Community Hospital for stomach pain, was diagnosed with a colon infection (diverticulitis) among other problems. The woman was treated by removal of a portion of her colon and a primary anastomosis. Neglecting standard procedure, the doctor failed to perform a colostomy. When the patient returned to the hospital shortly after, the staples used in the anastomosis had come undone. At that point, the doctor performed the colostomy but it was too late. The woman ultimately died.

Illnesses, injuries and infections caused by medical mistakes or negligence in hospitals will no longer be covered by Medicare, the government health insurance program for senior citizens. This new initiative can save the lives and wellbeing of patients because it will make doctors and hospitals more accountable for preventable errors and force them to adhere more closely to policies and procedures. Private insurers are considering implementing a similar policy, which could save Americans money.

The preventable conditions that will not be covered by Medicare include surgical tools left inside patients after surgery, incompatible blood or air embolisms, bedsores or pressure ulcers developed during a hospital stay, injuries resulting from falls in the hospital, and infections caused by extended use of catheters in blood vessels or the bladder and infections at a surgical site after coronary artery bypass surgery. Some hospital spokesmen have expressed concerns that, for instance, bedsores are sometimes unpreventable. The conditions that have been chosen to be excluded from Medicare coverage are not arbitrary, however. They have been chosen by experts that believe they can be reasonably prevented. Levin & Perconti, for example, settled a case for $1 million recently when a nursing home claimed that a patient’s severe pressure sores were not avoidable. The patient, however, was able to completely recover when moved to a different facility. The included injuries were chosen by experts and stand as federal recognition that they are avoidable and can be prevented by stronger adherence to policies and procedures.

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Scott Clewis of Levin & Perconti recently filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against a doctor and Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois for the wrongful death of a patient. The complaint alleges that the victim's doctor negligently failed to diagnose her cardiomyapathy. He failed to take an adequate medical history, failed to suspect a cardiac condition as a cause of the woman's symptoms and perform appropriate testing and order appropriate medication. The victim's condition of cardiomyopathy went undiagnosed and untreated and ultimately resulted in her death.

Click here to read the complaint

A 72-year-old woman was awarded $1.27 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit against a hospital as a result of her leg being amputated to the knee when it became infected with maggots 18 days after surgery on her foot. A nursing home doctor discovered hundreds of maggots in her wound. The woman's lawyer alleged that the gauze for her wound was changed but that the wound was not cleaned. The woman said she was pleased with the verdict because the negligence of the nursing home and hospital caused her permanent disfigurement and that she needed the money because she became so completely dependent on others.

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A 64-year-old woman has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the federal government as a result of the negligence of an Army surgeon. During a routine surgery, the doctor punctured her right hepatic duct, causing the contents to leak into her peritoneum. The surgeon failed to detect or diagnose the medical mistake and sent the woman home the next day. When she returned a few days later, as her condition was deteriorating, she stayed at the hospital for three more days until the doctor realized his mistake. The lawsuit alleges that the doctor was negligent before and after the surgery. In addition to medical bills and loss of wages, the woman suffers from pain, loss of quality of life, severe emotional distress, disfigurement and permanency of injury.

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For more information about the Federal Tort Claims Act click here

A legal malpractice lawsuit was filed in St. Clair, Illinois recently by a man whose lawyer failed to file his medical malpractice claim within the necessary statute of limitation. The Illinois man was injured by a bullet wound and was treated by the hospital. He was discharged even though he was suffering from a high fever and severe pain at the wound site. A few days later, the man was diagnosed with gangrene and the delay in the diagnosis resulted in injuries to his bones, soft tissues, ligaments, tendons, muscles and blood vessels. The man alleges that his attorney's negligence caused significant financial damage and the loss of his medical malpractice claim.

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The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation suspended both the physician and surgeon license of Gerald Saul Kane, M.D., of Chicago suburb Highland Park. Three patients treated by Dr. Kane received a surplus of multiple prescriptions in a short period of time. This included more than 20,000 doses of OxyContin and other pain killers and controlled substances. Two patients died of drug overdoses shortly after receiving their last prescriptions from Dr. Kane. The department alleges that the doctor did not appropriately treat these patients by failing to prescribe medically appropriate amounts of controlled substances and failed to monitor the patients for signs of dependence on these drugs, leading to the wrongful death of the two patients. The department issued his summary claiming that allowing Dr. Kane to continue to practice medicine after this medical malpractice would put the safety of the public in danger. His license has been suspended and his license to prescribe controlled substances has been revoked.

A personal injury suit between a Chicago area dentist and a man who died while in the dentist's care was settled for $1,135,000. The wrongful death action alleged that the dentist administered intravenous sedation but failed to properly monitor the Chicago, Illinois man. When the dentist realized that the man had stopped breathing, he then administered the wrong drug in an attempt to resuscitate him. Paramedics were called, but they were unable to revive the man.

The Chicago area resident went to the dentist to have a tooth pulled.

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The parents of a child with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy is suing the hospital for medical malpractice. The birth injury lawsuit alleges that the hospital failed to properly monitor for signs of fetal distress during delivery. Doctors had given the mother pitocin to induce labor. During delivery, fetal heatrate dropped into the 100s, a dangerously low level, for 80 seconds. The hospital continued to administer pitocin for the next hour and a half. According to the medical malpractice suit, the baby was born "blue, not breathing, had no heartbeat, and had a scalp hematoma with a laceration." Because of the lack of oxygen to the brain during delivery, the child now suffers from cerebral palsy.

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A Chicago family was awarded $14 million in a recent birth injury settlement. A boy suffered a severe brain injury during birth as a result of medical malpractice and negligence. The hospital staff members confused his heart rate and his mother’s pulse, and the baby was born not breathing. The emergency staff was not prepared for resuscitation as a result of the monitoring error. The obstetrician and nurse did not realize that the baby was in fetal distress and the seven minute lapse without oxygen resulted in cerebral palsy, leaving his arms and legs paralyzed. The judge approved the settlement, allowing the family to be able to provide for the boy for the rest of his life.

Click here for the Chicago Tribune article.

A recent HealthGrades study revelaed that 248,000 patient deaths over a three-year period were preventable, and mistakes multiply during the night shift. Every type of patient is at danger during the night.

Studies have shown that babies born at night are 16% more likely to die than babies born during the day. Patients going into cardiac arrest at night were also more likely to die. Pediatric patients admitted at night are more likely to die within two days. The risks appear even more serious when birth injuries and pediatric injuries also occur preventably. Medication administration errors also multiply at night. Weekends are also dangerous for patients.

Because workers with seniority get priority shifts, night time staffers are not only fewer, but less experienced. Night staffing issues are not limited to doctors and nurses; mental health, social services, directors, and administrators are also understaffed on the night shift. Not only are night workers less experienced, they also suffer from fatigue- a major contributor to night shift errors.

Beware of the danger that medical errors are more frequently made at night. Click here to read the full article, including a personal account of a preventable death occuring during the night shift.

A woman whose feet and fingers were amputated as the result of complications with her tummy-tuck surgery was awarded $30,000,000 by a jury in the personal injury lawsuit. The woman had the tummy-tuck to correct muscle damage due to three caesarean sections, and 20 days later blood and fluid began collecting in her wound, causing her extremities to turn blue. The emergency room “spent too little time treating [the woman] and left the hospital at one point to change his pants.” The hospital staff also failed to administer and analyze tests in a timely fashion. The woman’s feet and fingers were ultimately amputated as a result of medical malpractice and gross negligence.

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More than half of the patient safety incident rates worsened from 2003 to 2005. On average, the rates worsened by over 11.5%, according to a recent Healthgrades study. The incidents with the greatest increases in rates were post-operative sepsis and post-operative respiratory failure. Failure to monitor a patient post-operation could result in medical malpractice and the recent increases in patient safety incident rates associated with post-operative care are frightening.

To read the full study.

Five years ago, a 45 year-old woman underwent a mini-facelift at a clinic. During the cosmetic surgery, her former high school classmate administered an excessive dose of fentanyl, a narcotic. The victim suffered respiratory arrest in the recovery room due to the lethal dose of fentanyl.

Although in 2001 the death was ruled as an accidental poisoning, police recently concluded that it was intentional. Police stated that the nurse was a certified nurse anesthetist and monitored the victim in recovery.

In addition to the criminal charges, the nurse faced a medical malpractice lawsuit from the victim’s family. The state Board of Nursing charged the nurse with failure to maintain an accurate record and failure to report information crucial to the safety of the patient. The Board also said that the nurse failed to alert the doctor about the victim’s deteriorating condition.

For the full article.