Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog

A federal judge dismissed a class-action lawsuit against HCA Inc., the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain saying that the cases in the class action need to be examined individually.

In April the hospital chain was sued in a claim it defrauded patients by directing its affiliated hospitals to staff nursing units below generally accepted levels.

The judge says those cases involve medical malpractice that should be examined on an individual basis, not in a consumer class-action.

For the full article.

A lawsuit has been filed by the widow of a Good Samaritan who attempted to rescue a woman’s purse after it had been snatched. The man chased after the thief and was halfway inside his car when the car crashed, pinning the Good Samaritan between the car and the building.

The man was immediately taken to Overland Park Regional Medical Center where he underwent surgery and was admitted to the intensive care unit of the hospital. While the purse thief was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, the new civil lawsuit alleges the doctors negligently treated the Good Samaritan after he came to the hospital.

The suit alleges medical malpractice in that the doctors waited too long to intervene, administered inappropriate antibiotics, and then waited too long to take him back to surgery.

For the full article.

In a new study recently released by the Center for Justice & Democracy, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was exposed for providing substantial financial and strategic assistance to local front groups to influence state elections. This includes funding major media buys to smear local candidates. The report, entitled “The Secret Chamber – The Inner Workings of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Hijacking of an Election,” inspected newly-released papers and deposition testimony uncovered in connection with litigation surrounding the failed 2004 election bid of Deborah Senn for Washington State Attorney General.

Unfortunately, the Chamber of Commerce advocates on behalf of businesses and often overlooks the rights and needs of individual citizens, particularly with respect to the civil justice system.

To read the study.

The Medical Malpractice Myth, released last November, by Tom Baker explains how claims of frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits are false.

In reponse to this summer’s unsuccessful fifth attempt by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to cap non-economic damage awards at $250,000, medical malpractice lawsuits continue to be on the forefront of political debates.

The following article examines why Tom Baker’s book is a best attempt to synthesize the academic literature on medical malpractice.

To read the article.

A doctor working at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans on the day the levis broke during Hurricane Katrina is being charged with homicide in the death of four patients believed to be victims of “mercy killings.”

Autopsies performed on the four elderly patients reveal they died from a lethal cocktail, a mix of morphine and a central-nervous-system depressant, Versed. None of the four patients were receiving these drugs as part of their course of treatment.

For the full article.

Thanks to Connecticut's civil union law, which allows gay to sue for loss of consortium, a lesbian couple has sued two doctors for medical malpractice. The suit alleges the doctors of treated one of the women for ovarian cancer when she actually had cancer of the appendix. As a result, the patient underwent years of chemotherapy while the cancer spread.

The woman is suing for damages and the woman’s partner is suing for damages on her behalf for loss of consortium. This is the first suit of its kinds since the state enacted its civil union law last year.

For the full article.

Often drug companies will find creative ways to get around FDA regulations concerning drug marketing. Man times, drug companies will pay doctors to promote their drugs, including the “off label” uses.

The FDA does not allow drug manufacturers to market their drugs for unapproved uses. Therefore, drug companies will often pay doctors like Dr. Peter Gleason, a Maryland psychiatrist, to speak at industry conferences. In the case of Dr. Gleason, he has recently been charged with promoting the drug Xyrem for purposes other than those approved by the federal government.

Xyrem is a narcolepsy drug but Dr. Gleason advocated its use in treating depression and for pain relief.

For the full article.

A new study from the Institute of Medicine released Thursday found that medication errors harm 1.5 million people, kill several thousand people and cost $3.5 billion per year in the United States.

Common errors are giving many times over the recommended dose, giving the wrong medication, and under medicating patients. Systemic changes are needed in the system to curtail the ill effects of medication errors. One of the proposed changes includes an electronic prescription service, however this system is used in only 6% of the nation’s hospitals.

The report also urged the Food and Drug Administration to improve and standardize the drug information leaflets given consumer because information on drug labels is often confusing and an important cause of medication errors.

For the full article.

A Franklin County jury today awarded $17.8 million in a medical malpractice case brought by the family of a 5 year old girl. This is the largest historical money award in the county awarded by a jury.

The $17.8 million will cover the future medical costs, education and pain and suffering of a 5-year-old whose brain was damaged before elective surgery at Children's Hospital nearly five years ago.

As a result the child cannot speak, has cerebral palsy and will use a wheelchair for life, one of her attorneys said. Doctors were preparing to remove a benign cyst from the neck of the then-4-month-old infant when something went wrong with the anesthesia on Sept. 25, 2001.

The jury found the anesthesiologist responsible for the girl’s injuries and determined he had failed to let the girl recover properly from a first attempt to administer anesthesia and didn't respond quickly to warning signs that something was wrong.

For the full article.

Under Oregon law, jury awards against public agencies are limited to $100,000 in general damages and $100,000 in special damages. Earlier this month, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that the family of an infant who was mistreated at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) can sue for more than the $200,000 allowed against public agencies.

The reasoning is that while the damage cap applies to OHSU, a public entity, it is unconstitutional to prevent the suit from seeking the full damages against the individual employees. The family of the boy, who suffered permanent brain damage in 1998 while in intensive care at OHSU Hospital, requested more than $17 million in the lawsuit to cover past and future medical expenses, lost earning capacity and pain and suffering.

For the full article.

A doctor is the subject of a medical malpractice lawsuit in the death of a woman for whom the doctor illegally prescribed a hydrogen-peroxide solution to treat her multiple sclerosis.

The same doctor is being sued in a second medical malpractice case by the widow of a man who died of prostate cancer in 2004. The man sought treatment form the doctor who gave him intravenous hydrogen-peroxide treatments and falsely diagnosed him as having Lyme disease. The doctor next prescribed testosterone, which caused the man’s prostate cancer to rapidly advance and resulted in his death about six weeks later.

For the full article.

The Tripler Army Medical Center has admitted liability in a birth trauma case set for trial on August 15, 2006. The trial next month will focus on damages in the case of a newborn baby who was mistakenly given carbon dioxide instead of oxygen for more than 40 minutes after his birth.

As a result of the mistake, the boy, now 19 months, is severely brain damaged. The parents have sued for medical malpractice and future medical expenses, which are expected to be quite steep given that for as long as he lives, the child will need around-the-clock nursing care, relying on medical devices to eat and breathe.

Upon birth, the boy was healthy but the hospital decided to give his breathing a boost by putting him on oxygen. As it turns out, he didn’t receive oxygen at all. After the infant was given carbon dioxide, his health began to deteriorate. The hospital personnel realized the 40 minutes later that tubing was connected to the wrong gas tank, which caused the child’s heart to stop, necessitating resuscitation.

For the full article.

The House Health Subcommittee pledged to work together and find new solutions to medical malpractice reform in a bipartisan move last week.

Possible solutions included the use of health courts, and an “early offer” reform, which would allow hospitals to make offers for economic damages and attorneys fees within 180 days after a medical malpractice lawsuit is filed.

To read the full article.

A Convalescent Hospital was fined $65,000 and cited by the state Department of Health Services when an 83 year-old woman choked to death on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Monday.

The woman had continually been assessed by the home as at risk for choking. Special instructions were given to staff to take precuations to ensure the woman was fed while upright, and that she took small bites interspersed with liquids while eating. The sticky consistency of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich should have raised a red flag with the nurse who gave the woman the sandwich saying “you promised you would eat.” Moreover, according to the state report, the staff did not sit her upright or remind her to take small bites.

The woman was found ten minutes later, unresponsive, and she died from chocking shortly thereafter.

For the full article.

When a 52 year-old woman came into an Emergency Room she was quickly diagnosed with a stroke, brain hemorrhage and blood clot. The woman desperately needed a neurosurgeon. However, after eleven hours of looking for a specialist, the nearest surgeon available was 260 miles away.

The surgery was performed, however the woman died 10 days later, likely the result of her deteriorating condition as she waited for a neurosurgeon. The unavailability of specialty surgeons, particularly neurosurgeons, hand surgeons and ophthalmologists, is not uncommon in the nation’s ER rooms as patients flock to emergency rooms that don’t have the capacity for all who arrive on their doorstep.

In one state, Hospital CEOs and physicians are working to fix the problem of lack of available specialists by coordinating specialists regionally and infusing money into emergency departments.

For the full article.

In an editorial responding to Senator Rick Santorum’s outspoken views on the so-called medical malpractice crisis, Larry Smar, a spokesperson for Pennsylvania treasurer Bob Casey cited the one-third decline in medical malpractice lawsuits between 2000 and 2004. Furthermore, Smar quoted a malpractice insurance expert who declared recently, “In Pennsylvania, the malpractice crisis is over.”

Moreover, categorizing medical malpractice lawsuits as “frivolous” is simply incorrect. According to a recent Harvard study, only 3% of all malpractices claims are filed by patients who didn’t experience injuries, and these suits were for the most part dismissed or resolved without payment.

For the full article.

Last Thursday, Governor Blagojevich proposed measures that are likely to reduce medical errors that kill nearly 4,000 Illinoisans a year. This measure comes a year after the Illinois legislature enacted caps on medical malpractice cases limiting non-economic damages awarded against individual physicians to $500,000 and limiting non-economic damages awarded against hospitals to $1,000,000.

On of Blagojevich’s proposed measures is a voluntary computer prescription program which national medical experts have estimated may reduce errors by 80 percent. With more than 750 medications that sound and look alike, this measure could be particularly effective at reducing prescription mix-ups and mis-fillings.

Blagojevich also proposed more focus on medical practices by creating a new patient safety division to standardize medication practices and reduce mistakes. While these measures will likely curtail instances of medical errors, the fact remains that the medical malpractice damage caps enacted last year strip Illinoisians of their right to fair and just compensation if they are not saved by preventative measures like the Governor proposes.

For the full article.

An editorial in the Pocono Record, calls attention to the comments of Senator Rick Santorum Rep-PA, who held a news conference on June 1, 2006, speaking out against the “medical malpractice crisis.”

What Senator Santorum didn’t reveal was the $350,000 he and his wife were awarded in a medical malpractice lawsuit against their chiropractor.

For the letter.