Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog

A jury recently awarded a woman and her son $19 million as a result of a birth injury medical malpractice lawsuit against her obstetrician. The son was born with celebral palsy and cortical blindness. After verdict, the mother said “No amount of money will make up for what happened to my son.”

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In 1990, a doctor delivered a baby with a permanently disabled arm. The parents filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the doctor and hospital. The medical malpractice lawsuit alleged that the hospital negligently gave staff privileges to a doctor who had been sued repeatedly and lacked proper malpractice insurance. Just last Wednesday, the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine temporarily suspended this doctor’s license.

This temporary suspension finally occurs after many incidents of medical malpractice and still is only temporary. Doctors must be held accountable in a more timely fashion before more people fall victim to medical malpractice.

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The family of a woman must reimburse Wal-Mart for nearly a half-million dollars in medical expenses now that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review her case. The court recently let a ruling by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis requiring Debbie Shank to pay nearly $470,000 to Wal-Mart.

This appeal was the last legal recourse for the family of 52 year-old Shank who was critically injured in a car accident eight years ago. She suffered a brain injury, leaving her with no memory and very little ability to move or communicate. She has lived in a nursing home since being released from the hospital.

Shank’s medical bills were covered by a health insurance program at Wal-Mart where Shank worked nights stocking shelves. Her family later settled a personal injury lawsuit with the trucking company whose driver was involved in the accident. After fees and expenses, $417,477 was put in a trust for Shank’s care. That settlement money plus $51,739 will have to pay out of pocket to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart’s insurance required full repayment of medical expenses if she received money from a personal injury lawsuit. Wal-Mart sued the family of the brain injured victim and stated that it sued “out of fairness to everyone who contributes” to the plan.

This tragic story is a prime example as to why the insurance and health care industries in the United States are in serious need of reform. Wal-Mart is an extremely wealthy business making its employees contribute for their own health care and now apparently sues to get money back from the most vulnerable victims.

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It was recently revealed that a clinic had reused syringes and vials of medicine. With a large clientele, this clinic could have potentially exposed 40,000 patients to HIV and hepatitis B and C. This Southern Nevada clinic is now facing numerous medical malpractice lawsuits.

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A jury verdict decided in favor of physicians in the medical malpractice and wrongful death lawsuit of Actor John Ritter. The medical malpractice lawsuit was brought by Ritter’s widow and children. The jury deliberated for two days, but did not find the cardiologist or the radiologist to be negligent in Ritter’s care. The plaintiffs had already settled with eight other defendants in medical malpractice claims for $14 million.

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The gynecologist whose patient died after his abortion is now facing a wrongful death lawsuit and medical malpractice lawsuit and a possible grand jury indictment. The patient, a 22 year-old woman, died after an abortion was performed in September. The doctor resigned his medical license last month. The District Attorney confirmed that he will seek a criminal indictment against the doctor.

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A recent op-ed article scrutinized health care oversight. The article argued that there is no reason that any consumer seeking preventive care should risk death while seeking routine medical care at the hands of a profiteering physician. When culpability in a medical malpractice lawsuit becomes revealed, there is no reason that others with close ties to a bad doctor should remain in positions of oversight. The article concludes that a full-scale, top-to-bottom failure of government systems have allowed years of risky behavior to put others at risk of medical malpractice.

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Four years ago, an investigation concluded that it was easier for consumers to find out information about their building contractors than for patients to get information about their doctors. In response, the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners promised to enhance its website to inform the public about doctors. But recently, the board removed medical malpractice lawsuit settlement and judgment information from the doctors’ online records. One State Senator stated that the statute covering the website was not very specific, but added “if we have to spell it out, then we’ll spell it out.”

People should have a right to the medical malpractice history of their doctors to make better informed decisions. Any board hindrance on consumer research into their own health care is unacceptable.

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An amendment to the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act failed to move past committee as the bill sought to limit the rights of injured persons, including many affected by medical malpractice and negligence. The amendment provided that the Act would “not apply to claims seeking damages for conduct that results in bodily injury, death, or damage to property other than the property that is the subject” of the unlawful practice. Effectively, this amendment would have increased the ease with which businesses, including hospitals, could defraud and deceive their customers, including through misrepresentation or concealment of a material fact. The fact that the amendment failed to reach the Senate floor suggests that the legislature valued the rights of individuals above the rights of companies to defraud consumers through such techniques as bait and switch advertising and the misrepresentation of a product’s effectiveness.

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A recent op-ed article examined the “tort reform” debate that is ongoing throughout America and suggests our country look to New Zealand’s approach to medical malpractice. The article states that New Zealand has succeeded in compensating patients and ensuring accountability among physicians by taking a markedly different approach.

In New Zealand, patient compensation occurs in a process that is similar to workers’ compensation system; victims of medical malpractice get compensation as needed without consideration of fault. Meanwhile, a separate and distinct process focuses on identifying medical malpractice errors and improving quality of care. Physicians face a wide range of disciplinary outcomes, including losing their licenses to practice.

For the full article.

A guest post written by Susan Jacobs*

A recent study conducted by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has indicated that we are no closer to preventing patients from waking up during surgery. Despite the use of modern brain-wave monitors that supposedly detect if a patient is conscious during surgery, the problem is still there. In fact, it has been widely reported that approximately 30,000 Americans waking during surgery each year.

In many cases, patients wake during surgery, but without the ability to scream out or move their body. One would be hard-pressed to imagine a more nightmarish situation. Not only is the patient aware of what is going on, it is possible to feel the full extent of the pain and not be able to react. The question remains, why is this still occurring at such an alarming rate in the 21st century?

"Anesthesia awareness," as it is being called, occurs in 1 to 2 patients out of every 1,000. What is even more alarming is that children are more susceptible to waking during surgery, which could certainly cause long-term emotional trauma.

Naturally, this growing problem has resulted in many medical malpractice lawsuits. In 2007, a 73-year-old man filed a lawsuit after experiencing anesthesia awareness during abdominal surgery. Doctors made a mistake and he was not given general anesthesia until 16 minutes after the surgeon made the first cut. The patient had been given paralyzing medication before the anesthesia, so he could not cry out in pain.

Anesthesia Awareness Campaign Inc. is a non-profit group that was founded by Carol Weihrer. Weihrer experienced anesthesia awareness during eye surgery over a decade ago. It is the mission of this group to bring attention to the terrifying occurrence, as well as to seek a way to prevent it from happening to another person.

Victims of anesthesia awareness are haunted for years after their ordeal. In fact, a 2002 study in Sweden followed a group of victims after they reported their experience. 4 out of 9 patients were not only troubled; they were severely disabled psychologically. Hopefully, this recent study will garner enough media attention for the public to demand more preventative measures in the operating room.

* Susan Jacobs is a teacher, a freelance writer as well as a regular contributor for NOEDb, a site helping students obtain an online nursing degree. Susan invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address susan.jacobs45@gmail.com .

The Illinois state legislature introduced a proposed rule amendment that would amend the Code of Civil Procedure to allow courts to appoint a special representative for a person who dies before an action is filed against him. The amendment thus allows plaintiffs to bring an action against the special representative without opening an estate. Further, the change would require all heirs or legatees of the deceased be notified of the action by U.S. mail.

This amendment has the potential to affect those seeking medical malpractice claims against physicians that die prior to the filing of an action. The bill would allow these individuals to seek recovery from a court appointed special representative instead of the complicated alternative of opening an estate.

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At least five people not yet identified by health officials say that during visits to a Las Vegas medical clinic that reused syringes and improperly cleaned medical equipment in a horrible case of medical malpractice. Medical malpractice lawsuits were filed against the Clinic alleging that the patients contracted the potentially fatal hepatitis C while undergoing colonoscopies.

For the full article.

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 medical malpractice lawsuit alleging that a large piece of gauze had been left inside a patient after surgery was thrown out by a judge last week. The medical malpractice lawsuit contends that a piece of gauze more than 2 feet long was left inside a woman after surgery in 2004. The surgeries involved an abdomen problem where the wound would not heal. The judge dismissed the case by granting the defendants’ motion stating that gauze was not left inside the woman.

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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 state Supreme Court decided to expand the rights of wronged patients in medical malpractice and negligence cases. The decision reinterprets the law so that the statute of limitations on raising a malpractice claim now begins once a patient knows the extent and cause of his injury in contrast to prior decisions stating that the statute of limitations began once symptoms were initially diagnosed.

The decision arose after a district court dismissed two claims of medical malpractice based on the expiration of the statute of limitations. In the first case, parents of a 16-year-old sued a facility for negligently prescribing Antabuse to treat the teen’s alcohol addiction. However, the suit alleged that the Antabuse caused long-term vomiting, jaundice, and irreversible liver damage. The district court ruled that, because the teen experienced severe symptoms beginning in March 1999 and the suit was not filed until April 2001, the two-year statute of limitations had expired. However, the Supreme Court overturned this decision, reasoning that any diagnosis of liver damage did not occur until months after the she began experiencing symptoms.

In the second case, a woman sued several medical providers for misdiagnosing her breast cancer. The district court dismissed the case because she had been informed, five years prior to filing the action, that there was a lump in her breast. However, in overruling this decision, the Supreme Court noted that the woman had repeatedly been told that her lump was benign until a test revealed cancer one year prior to her suit.

In reaching these conclusions, the Supreme Court emphasized concerns over fairness to patients, doctors, and the medical malpractice industry. Ultimately, the Court found that the rights of medical practitioners were not significantly impaired where there was actual wrongdoing.

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A recent study has found that many of the serious incidents of medical malpractice and negligence go unreported, even when physicians are aware that they should be reporting such violations. A survey of 1,600 doctors showed that 46 percent had witnessed “serious” medical errors by their colleagues without reporting them, even though 93 percent said they realized they should report such malpractice.

Part of the problem stems from an unspoken rule in the medical profession against reporting a fellow physician. The problem is compounded by physicians on disciplinary committees who tend to give colleagues leniency in disciplinary proceedings. Further, consumers are left in the dark in most states as only 16 states report malpractice payouts made by doctors on public websites. Additionally, even when the disciplinary system works, it routinely takes three years to resolve a complaint, allowing these physicians to continue practicing. One doctor even continued to see patients after settling three malpractice cases in five years, including one involving a wrongful death.

Given the lack of oversight from the medical community, there appears to be a greater need for outside regulation. Litigation is an effective way to put physicians on notice that they are subject to discipline if they are negligent. This raises concerns over tort reform, because limiting recovery for wronged patients will only make oversight more challenging and less effective. As the medical community is unwilling to police itself, restricting the rights of patients and attorneys to discipline incompetent physicians through tort reform will only increase the incidents of unreported serious medical errors.

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Ron Weidenfeller, through his attorneys at Levin and Perconti, has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Schaumburg-based Cancer Treatment Centers of America and its Midwestern Regional Medical Center in Zion on behalf of his wife who died from an undiagnosed colon obstruction.

Mrs. Weidenfeller had been complaining of severe pain, distention of her abdomen, and constipation in the days before she died. The Wiedenfeller’s requested tests to ensure she had no bowel obstruction, but instead of listening to the patient’s complaints, the facility assured the couple she would be fine and did not perform these tests. Ultimately, it was determined that the cause of death was sepsis from an undiagnosed perforated colon, revealed by an autopsy that facility staff suggested Mr. Weidenfeller not pursue.

This case is one more illustration of the devastating impact tort reform will have on victims of medical malpractice and negligence. Mr. Weidenfeller is seeking damages because he believes the facility was not candid with him about the events leading to his wife’s death. Should damages be limited where a medical facility simply fails to conduct a necessary test? How much do insurance costs affect a facility’s decision to conduct necessary testing? Shielding physicians and facilities from liability will only discourage them from taking measures necessary for the health and safety of our citizens. Perhaps the threat of liability would have provided the motivation to conduct proper testing to find Mrs. Weidenfeller’s bowel obstruction. Passage of significant tort reform measures will only increase the likelihood of negligence and malpractice and will prevent future Weidenfellers from seeking their just compensation.

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