Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice

According to Peter Rosi, M.D., a Chicago-area obstetrician who has been sued more than ten times, and criminally prosecuted, for medical mistakes including errors made during home births, and pediatric care leading to infant brain damage, “[e]ighty percent of complications in childbirth are psychological.” Dr. Rosi contends that “[b]abies can be killed by a mother’s attitude.”

In Illinois, Dr. Rosi advised pregnant women whose home births ran into problems to drive long distances to hospitals where he had privileges. For example, Dr. Rosi has testified that he instructed a woman in labor to crouch on all fours in the back seat of her car while her family drove her 75 miles to a hospital where he had medical privileges. Dr. Rosi followed the laboring mother in his car. While there were 7 closer hospitals which could have performed a c-section, Dr. Rosi did not advise the family to go there for emergent medical care. According to court records, the baby was born dead, following inhalation of his own waste. When questioned about his handling of this case, Dr. Rosi testified that “[b]abies die.”

A Syracuse jury has awarded a Cortland man $10,000,000.00 for injuries arising out of a 2004 medical mistake. According to the Post-Standard, a Cortland man presented to Crouse Hospital in 2004 for surgery on his spine. Approximately one week later, the man returned to the hospital with complaints of back pain. The neurosurgeon failed to diagnose the man as suffering from a cerebral spinal fluid leak that was secondary to a tear.

Eventually, the man developed meningitis and became septic. When corrective surgery was finally performed, the man aspirated and went into a coma. He came out of the coma, but developed multi-system organ failure which resulted in a condition that left him largely paralyzed from the waist down.

The neurosurgeon was found 100% responsible. The Syracuse jury did not find Crouse Hospital negligent.
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A 2007 horror story today recounted by the Virginian-Pilot explains a labor and delivery gone wrong at Langley Air Force Base. Cindy Wilson, a 37 year old sergeant, gave birth by cesarean section just before midnight at the 1st Fighter Wing Hospital; however, she never held the baby. During delivery, Cindy’s obstetrician erred by severing her uterine artery causing massive internal bleeding – which went unidentified. During frantic efforts to save Cindy’s life, two surgical sponges were left inside her abdomen. Twelve hours after giving birth, Cindy was pronounced dead.

In the months after the death, Cindy’s parents learned that they had virtually no recourse against the negligent doctors and hospital staff. An investigation was promised – and was conducted. However, the findings were shrouded in secrecy by Federal Law. Worse, Cindy’s husband and parents cannot sue the military under the Feres Doctrine.

The problem with the Feres Doctrine is that military doctors do not have to worry about lawsuits. In turn, there is nothing to discourage malpractice or substandard medical care. For example, gossypibomas (surgical sponges left inside a patient) are almost unheard of in the non-military medical community because special counting procedures have been devised. Not so in military operating rooms.

According to Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, “the Feres Doctrine [is] . . . one of the most grotesque rules created in the history of this republic,” Turley said. “It has done untold damage to thousands of military personnel and their families.”

The comparison drawn between military and civilian medicine is relevant, as many civilian doctors blame medical malpractice lawsuits for rising malpractice insurance premiums and defensive medicine. However, it is clear that patients suffer where lawsuits are not available to ensure that doctors and other health care providers meet the standard of care.
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While much ink has been spilled over medical malpractice insurance rates for New York doctors and hospitals – commonly referred to as the “medical malpractice crisis” – what the medical profession does not want the public to know is that the crisis lies in the number of medical mistakes.

Several recent studies, including those conducted by the Institute of Medicine, HealthGrades, the United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Kaiser Family Foundation, reveal the following troubling statistics:

• 50,000 to 100,000 Americans die annually due to preventable medical errors. Stated differently, more people die each year because of medical malpractice than because of motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.

• Roughly 32,000 Americans die annually due to hospital negligence.

• Approximately 1,000,000 people are injured annually due to medical mistakes.

• Medication errors account for 7,000 deaths annually.

• 80% of doctors surveyed reported that they had observed a colleague make a medical mistake. Only 10% reported the mistake.

• 84% of doctors surveyed reported witnessing a colleague take a shortcut that could injure a patient.

• 50% of nurses surveyed reported that they had observed a colleague make an error. Only 10% reported the error.

• 50% of nurses surveyed reported working with a colleague who appears incompetent.

• 62% of nurses surveyed reported witnessing a colleague take a shortcut that could injure a patient.

• Medical mistakes cost America $17,000,000,000 to $29,000,000,000 each year (less than 1/3 of the annual costs relate to lawsuits).

At the heart of the “medical malpractice crisis” are insurance industry investment practices. According to Victor Schwartz, General Counsel, American Tort Reform Association: “Insurance was cheaper in the 1990s because insurance companies knew that they could take a doctor’s premium and invest it, and $50,000 would be worth $200,000 five years later when the claim came in … An insurance company today can’t do that.”
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A study recently published by a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School reports a connection between childhood cancer survivors and adult women who fail to timely undergo mammograms, despite an increased risk for cancer.

Per the study, as many as 66% of women age 25 to 39 who were diagnosed with cancer when they were young, and survived, reported that they had not had a screening mammogram in the past two years. As many as 25% of women age 40 and older had not undergone a mammogram in the past two years.

These women should be part of regular screening for cancer as chest radiation for pediatric malignancy increases the risk of breast cancer by 12-20%. Despite the risk, many women are not screened because of medical malpractice – i.e., they do not receive appropriate medical advice from their gynecologist or family practitioner.

Publishers of the study believe that the medical community must take note of “the relatively low uptake of screening mammography in a high-risk population, the importance of clinician recommendation to improve the uptake of screening mammography, and the continuing need to educate clinicians and patients about the risks of breast cancer after chest irradiation in childhood through well-designed education programs.”
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Recently, a team of doctors at a Michigan hospital formed an “I Am Sorry” team to speak to hospital patients and their families after a medical mistake is made by a doctor, nurse, or pharmacist. The teams were created to increase transparency, improve upon hospital protocols, increase patient confidence, decrease medical malpractice lawsuits, and lower insurance premiums. The teams stand in stark contrast to the usual “deny and defend” mentality.

While the patient apology program is in place University of Michigan Health System, St. Joseph Mercy Health System, and the Henry Ford Health System, it has not made its way to Central New York hospitals such as Crouse Hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center, Community General Hospital, University Hospital (SUNY Upstate), Faxton-St. Luke’s Healthcare, or St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center.

Typically, the process works as follows:

1. Patient or family are notified of hospital mistake within 24 hours.
2. Medical quality review team investigates medical error.
3. Apology is issued.
4. Compensation is offered if the mistake caused an injury, or time away from work.
5. Once a lawyer is hired, many hospitals will not share the apology or the cause for the mistake and revert to “deny and defend.”

While this process is good for a hospital’s bottom line, it does not serve the interests of the injured. Much like an insurance company that calls an injured worker the day after an accident and offers a nominal sum to resolve a case forever – without regard for the injured’s future prognosis – it appears that hospital apologies are being used as a vehicle to secure de minimis settlements before a patient has time to digest the full extent of medical malpractice. As many of us are quick to accept an apology, i.e., forgive and forget, legal rights may be prematurely signed away on the heels of a heartfelt confession.

Doctors are human and they make mistakes. However, a medical mistake does not make a doctor a bad doctor, or a bad person. While a confession goes a long way toward restoring faith in the medical community after an error, it cannot bring back a lost loved one, turn back the clock on undiagnosed cancer, or reverse a newborn’s hypoxic brain injury. Where medical mistakes cause permanent disability and financial loss, compensation is the only way to make a patient or family, to the extent possible, whole again.
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Community General Hospital, located in Syracuse, New York, announced today that it will be adding 36 private rooms as part of a $7.6 million expansion of its inpatient orthopedic services department. Community General Hospital, at the recommendation of the Berger Commission, is investing in infrastructure. The decision to construction private rooms is in keeping with the hospital’s efforts to better patient care and improve upon patient safety and comfort.
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Dr. Kimberly Silvers, of Ithaca Dermatology, recently began using a mobile clinic in order to increase the change of diagnosing skin cancer before it spreads. According to Silvers, “we’re just trying to make people aware that they can just have a ten minute exam to check their body and it could save their life.”

Melanoma diagnoses are on the rise. It is the most deadly form of skin cancer. Most common in areas exposed to the sun, signs and symptoms of melanoma include change in the appearance of a mole, or development of an unusual looking growth on the skin. When evaluating a mole, follow the A-B-C-D-E method:

1. Is the mole “A”symmetrical?
2. Does the mole have an irregular “B”order?
3. Has the more changed in “C”olor?
4. Has the “D”iameter of the mole changed?
5. Is the mole “E”volving over time?

If the answer to any of the A-B-C-D-E questions is yes, the American Academy of Dermatology recommends that you speak with a doctor. Melanomas may also be hidden, so it is important that you have your skin periodically checked. Where skin cancer is diagnose early, it can be treated.
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