Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog

Following the lead of a Midwestern hospital, facilities throughout the country are taking a novel approach to medical malpractice – honesty. In an effort to limit liability, hospitals are calling patients’ families for meetings where they inform the family members that their loved one died, not because of natural causes, but physician malpractice or negligence. Surprisingly, the approach has worked to the extent that most family members appreciate an honest account of the cause of death.

However, there is an invidious motive behind this new policy. Hospitals are finding that by calling family members into their facility and telling them what happened, they are able to force ignorant or misinformed grieving family members into an emotional decision to settle before even consulting an attorney. This has the potential to create problems where settlements are far below fair compensation for the pain and suffering experienced by the family or even insufficient to cover basic medical expenses. Many of these cases involve gross negligence on the part of physicians where a patient is administered the wrong medication or a fundamental test is not performed that could have prevented death.

Ultimately, the policy of honesty has potential in wrongful death situations. However, patients and family members should be cautious when faced with a sudden decision to settle. At the very least, these individuals should avoid making an emotional decision on-the-spot. To this extent, consulting an attorney would help improve and refine this new approach to medical malpractice.

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Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago recently settled a case for nearly $8 Million based on medical malpractice and negligence. The settlement comes following a physician’s failure to diagnose a nurse with meningitis even though she complained of sudden, severe joint pain, headaches and neck stiffness. Her meningitis was left undiagnosed for three days, leading to severe mental and physical disabilities. Further, she became dependent on others for nearly all aspects of self-care and mobility and suffered from severe deficits in social skills. Had the emergency room staff properly diagnosed the woman, she could have avoided severe life-long damage.

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After actor John Ritter died in 2003 from an aortic dissection, his family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against multiple doctors and a hospital. The family settled with the hospital and other people involved for $14 million but sought another $67 million at trial against remaining doctors, alleging that Ritter’s cardiologist misdiagnosed his aortic dissection as a heart attack, consequently mistreating it. Further, the suit alleged that a radiologist failed to perform an x-ray which could have shown the aortic dissection, leading to a missed opportunity for Ritter to receive potentially life-saving surgery. The jury, however, disagreed with his family’s arguments and found in favor of the defendant doctors.

While the Ritter family did not receive the $67 million they asked for, the case still showed the inequities of capping medical malpractice awards. For loss of income, there is normally no cap or a very high one, where as loss of companionship has very low limits. This means that wealthy people, who would have made more in their lifetime, can be awarded larger settlements for the same issues. Often this means that a case on behalf of a decedent who was retired, unemployed, or otherwise not making much money will not be worth filing because of caps on potential awards. Conversely, the same case on behalf of a decedent who was making a large amount of money will be worth filing because the award may be greater since loss of income will have a high cap, if one at all. For example, Ritter’s family could have been awarded a large amount because he had huge earning potential, whereas an unemployed person who died in the same manner would not have been able to receive nearly as large an award because their earning potential was so much smaller.

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A hospital patient has sued his former doctors and their hospital in a medical malpractice lawsuit for mistaken diagnosis that lead to unnecessary surgery. The man was initially diagnosed with cancer and doctors told him he may die. The doctors then performed surgery to remove part of his lung that they claimed was cancerous. However, the patient now believes that the diagnosis was based on the medical information of another patient, not him, that was diagnosed with breast cancer. The medical malpractice lawsuit also claims that the doctors knew of the mistake after the surgery and failed to tell the patient.

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An East Chicago jury has awarded $4.5 million dollars in a medical malpractice lawsuit against St. Catherine Hospital. The man entered the hospital and was misdiagnosed as having a kidney stone. However, the hospital and doctors treating him should have performed a necessary procedure to rule out other conditions. Instead, the doctors and hospital failed to perform the test. The man died 12 hours after being discharged from an abdominal aortic aneurysm that could have been diagnosed earlier.

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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.

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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.

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An Illinois Appellate Court once again limited the rights of wronged patients in medical malpractice and negligence cases by affirming a trial court’s grant of summary judgment under the Illinois Tort Immunity Act. The court determined that the Tort Immunity Act immunizes a defendant for failing to make an adequate examination and for a failure to diagnose an illness.

In this case, due to the failure of the hospital staff to diagnose a precancerous condition or cancer, a woman died from cervical cancer. Physicians had diagnosed her with a vaginal infection, but it nearly six months to discover her cancer, at which point it was too late. The plaintiff argued that the lack of a follow-up pap smear constituted negligence related to the treatment of her vaginal infection, not her diagnosis because a repeat pap smear should have been part of her treatment plan. Had the follow-up pap smear been conducted, physicians may have discovered and treated the cancer.

This case limits the rights of patients because it immunizes physicians failure to diagnose where the diagnosis should have been a natural result of a prior treatment plan. Physicians should have held accountable where diagnosis and treatment are so intertwined, especially where the failure to diagnose directly leads to a patient’s death.

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The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a class-action lawsuit against the governor of Nevada and other state officials last week, alleging they had failed to rectify “a pervasive pattern of gross medical malpractice at the state’s maximum security prison. According to the medical malpractice lawsuit: “These deprivations are so extreme that they subject all the men confined there to constant significant risk of serious injury, medical harm [and] premature death.”

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A woman and her husband have filed a lawsuit against a hospital saying that doctors performed unnecessary surgery on her that led to health problems. According to the medical malpractice lawsuit filed, the woman was admitted to the hospital for a heart attack. She had a cardiac-bypass surgery five days later. While at the hospital, she contracted a bacterial infection that the couple says was misdiagnosed. Doctors did not realize the infection and removed part of her colon. The surgery was unnecessary and the woman now suffers health issues from the medical malpractice.

The medical malpractice lawsuit also states that the woman developed bed sores while in the hospital that the doctors could have prevented.

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A physician facing 122 charges of medical malpractice and negligence is finally facing the possibility of losing his license. After repeated acts of medical malpractice, including allegations in pending lawsuits by patients that the physician sent one patient into a coma and caused great pain to another, the physician may finally be unable to practice.

These allegations of negligence and medical malpractice are even more egregious considering he has surrendered his license, lost his license, or had his license revoked in at least six other states. Unfortunately, it is still unclear whether the physician will or will not be allowed to practice in the future.

Such cases illustrate the need for continued lawsuits for negligence and medical malpractice because of the medical community’s inability to police itself. Perhaps further litigation will cause physicians to realize that repeat acts of negligence and medical malpractice are unacceptable.

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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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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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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.

The mother of a 22-year-old victim of medical malpractice has recently sponsored a new law requiring doctors to make past medical malpractice settlements and verdicts against them public. The mother claims that her son was given an unnecessary surgery causing a brain injury that made him partly-paralyzed, half-blind and psychotic after his brain was jostled by the neurosurgeon. The surgeon claimed that the patient would make a full recovery after rehab but his injuries ultimately resulted in his death. When the patient's mother learned that the surgeon had done the procedure only once before and had a malpractice settlement and claims in another state, she decided to take action. The law stipulates that only settlements or final judgments will be publicized on the internet database. The Colorado bill was passed into law in early January 2008.

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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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An Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit trial recently began where a Springfield, Illinois pathologist misdiagnosed an infection in the medical malpractice victim’s back as cancer in 1998. This misdiagnosis caused preventable spine damage that required several surgeries and left the victim unable to work. Both the Illinois medical malpractice victim and the defendant hospital agree that a medical technician mistakenly included a biopsy sample from another patient among the nine samples that the doctor thought were from the Illinois medical malpractice victim. The other patient’s sample led to the doctor making a diagnosis that prompted the hospital to give him useless radiation treatment.

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