Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog

A Midwestern woman recently was awarded $2.75 Million following an incident of medical malpractice and negligence. Physicians failed to test a tumor that was removed from her foot, which had they tested it, would likely have tested positive for melanoma cancer. Instead, one year later, another tumor was removed that, when tested, revealed the cancer. However, due to state damage limit laws, she will likely only receive $1.25 Million.

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Congressman Hinchey unveiled a new bill that would allow victims of medical malpractice in military hospitals to file medical malpractice lawsuits against the military. The bill will be called the Carmelo Rodriguez Military Medical Accountability Act of 2008 after Sgt. Rodriguez who died after a serious of catastrophic medical mistakes that lead to his death. When Rodriguez entered the military, a routine examination revealed melanoma. However the doctor did not tell him about the cancer and failed to refer him to a specialist. A subsequent doctor misdiagnosed the melanoma. Rodriguez soon died from the melanoma. This bill would allow families and individuals to assert medical malpractice claims against military doctors, effectively reversing the Feres Doctrine which prevents military members and their families from suing over medical care received in service.

Read more about the new bill 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.

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A lawsuit surrounding the wrongful death of a patient after he received cancerous lung transplants may go to trial. Though many medical malpractice lawsuitssettle, parties in this suit may seek justice in court. The medical malpractice lawsuit surrounds a lung transplant operation that led to the patient’s death: the doctors transplanted cancerous lungs. Attorneys for the victim state that the doctors knew the lung was cancerous and misrepresented the health of the donor.

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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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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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Stroger Hospital in Chicago, Illinois and other Cook County medical clinics face Illinois medical malpractice lawsuits over faulty mammograms in two separate cases. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of an Illinois medical malpractice victim who passed away from breast cancer. The Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit claims that the victim was not told about her cancer soon enough to save her life. The lawsuit claims that the victim went to a Chicago Clinic in early 2005 and was told that the abnormal appearance of her breasts was just because she was “just old.” A mammogram just a few months later showed stage 3 breast cancer.

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In 1999, a 52 year-old woman had serious back pain and drove with her husband to the busy clinic of a doctor, whom they immediately liked because of his concern for the woman. Thirteen months later, that woman died from aggressive lymphoma that her husband now believes could have been the cause of the terrible back pain. Seven years after that, the doctor accused in a lawsuit of disregarding a sonogram that should have raised alarms about Joan’s cancer, settled with her estate for $925,000. The medical malpractice lawsuit settled six months before the state Health Department revealed that the doctor may have exposed thousands to hepatitis C and other bloodborne diseases by reusing syringes from multi-dose medicine vials.

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The American Cancer Society has recently produced an ad campaign stressing the need of adequate quality health care for Americans in order to lower cancer death rates. Among the poorly insured and uninsured, cancer is most often detected at an advanced stage, too frequently proving fatal. The American Cancer Society's goals of reducing cancer death and incidence rates by 2015, beginning in 1990, will not be met unless access to screening and treatment becomes available to all patients. The society's chief executive stated that, "lack of access will be a bigger cancer killer than tobacco," unless the health care system is amended. The delay in diagnosing poorly or uninsured patients causes them to bear the costs of more expensive and difficult treatments. Within families afflicted with cancer, one in four will use most or all of their savings, including one in five insured families, to fight the disease. 47 million Americans do not have health insurance, and millions more only have limited coverage. Access to health care for all Americans will lower cancer death rates, among innumerable other health ailments.

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Access to quality health care is urged by the American Cancer Society for all Americans. When cancer diagnosis or treatment is delayed, it can be fatal. This is felt even more so among the uninsured or under insured, whose life savings can be wiped out treating cancer.

According to the New York Times, 47 million Americans are without health insurance with millions more having only minimal or poor insurance. The American Cancer Society’s alert stems from the statistic that those suffering from breast, larynx and mouth cancers who are uninsured are more likely than the insured to have these cancers diagnosed at a late stage.

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An Illinois jury recently awarded $1.6 million to a man who suffered medical malpractice when his doctor failed to diagnose bladder cancer. The man went to his doctor, complaining of frequent urination and other issues. A mass in the man’s bladder was obstructing his kidneys, which led to renal failure. When the man went to see another doctor, that is when his condition was correctly diagnosed as bladder cancer. However, by that point, the cancer had already progressed to stage-four bladder cancer, which severely limited the man’s treatment options.

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A recent report regarding medical malpractice in Pennsylvania, focusing on surgical errors, was recently released by the Patient Safety Authority. 175 errors were made in the state during the past two and a half years, not including 253 close calls. These errors can lead to serious physical and financial strain, or even wrongful death. "Wrong-site" surgeries are a persistent problem and are clearly avoidable. Pennsylvania is a leader in public accountability for medical and surgical errors. In an effort to reduce the costs of health care, the Governor proposed that the state should cease to pay for care involving hospital-acquired infections, wrong-site surgeries, and other instances of medical malpractice. It is also the only state that requires hospitals to report near-misses.

The report cited wrong-site surgeries including the removal of a patient's healthy thyroid and incorrect cancer diagnosis as the result of a laboratory mix-up, an incorrect incision on the wrong side of a brain injury patient's head, and a surgeon inserting a needle into a patient's right knee when the surgery was planned for the other leg. In 83 reported cases of wrong-site surgeries in the state, the procedure was completed before the mistake was detected.

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Doctors argued to a State Supreme Court that they could not be sued by the family of a deceased woman, even though it was their medical malpractice and failure to diagnose cancer that contributed to her death. They said that, when the woman died, her medical malpractice suit "evaporated" and her surviving sons did not have standing to pursue the claims. Fortunately, the irony of this argument was not lost on the high court, and the sons' victory will provide them with the opportunity to present their mother's case before a jury.

Continue reading "State Supreme Court allows medical malpractice claim after patient's death" »

Victims of medical malpractice are mobilizing to help prevent medical errors and promote patient safety. Sorrel King created the Josie King Foundation to fund safety initiatives at hospitals in honor of her 18-month-old daughter who died after a series of medical mistakes. She also donated some of the financial settlement to the hospital where the errors occurred in order to start a children’s safety program. King launched a new web site, josieking.org, with advice and information for patients and the medical community on how to increase patient safety and what to do if medical errors do occur.

Continue reading "Patients and families affected by medical errors organize a grass-roots movement" »

A state court of appeals reversed the dismissal of a medical malpractice suit filed on behalf of a child who was conceived but not yet born at the time a doctor failed to diagnose colon cancer in the child's father. The failure to diagnose occurred approximately one month after the deceased and his wife learned that they were pregnant. The father died of cancer four months after the child was born. Although the trial court initially dismissed the case for lack of standing, the appellate court ruled that the child conceived but unborn at the time of the injury could file a negligence suit and sue for loss of companionship.

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A medical malpractice lawsuit was recently filed against a cancer doctor who told a 65 year-old woman that her breast cancer had returned and prescribed chemotherapy for treatment. A second opinion told the 65 year-old that she had no evidence of recurrent breast cancer. State regulators have found 19 other patients allegedly mistreated or misdiagnosed by the cancer specialist. The state claims that the patients were needlessly or excessively exposed to toxic cancer-fighting agents that endangered their health. For now, the doctor is still practicing! A January hearing before the state Medical Licensure Commission will issue the final authority over the validity of the doctor’s license.

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The Orange County Register reported that a sixty-one year old man won a $3.3 million jury award in a medical malpractice case against his primary care physician.

The victim initially saw the doctor in June 2002 after he had been urinating blood. The doctor concluded that the man had a kidney stone and instructed him to do nothing unless his symptoms resurfaced.

Only six months down the road, the victim was diagnosed with bladder cancer. After enduring multiple surgeries and several months of physical therapy, he continues to walk with a cane and has to urinate into a bag attached to his stomach.

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During the 1990’s, due to rising medical costs, the median income of primary care physicians remained relatively flat. In response, many physicians organized their offices into corporate practices to save money by assigning more nurses and physician’s assistants to more technical tasks

Often, these practices are flawed beca