J.B. was 35 years old and in her 26th week of her third pregnancy when she developed a severe headache and abdominal cramping. J.B. called her treating obstetrician’s office and later spoke to an on-call physician. That doctor diagnosed a gastrointestinal issue and told J.B. that there was no need…
The Illinois Appellate Court ruled that the emergency-room resident physician, Dr. Nicholas Strane, was immune from suit under the Illinois Emergency Medical Services System Act. This case arises out of transporting an 11-year-old boy, Donail Weems, who had a severe asthma attack and was taken to Provident Hospital, which is…
In December 2009, Marion Peterson was admitted to Our Lady of Resurrection Hospital in Chicago because of respiratory distress. After several days in the intensive care unit, she was transferred to a stepdown unit and started on the anticoagulant Lovenox for atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is an irregular heartbeat or…
Walter Hoover was 70 years old when he suffered a compression fracture in his back at L4. After the first rounds of treatment were found to be unsuccessful, he was transferred to a Veterans Administration Hospital where two neurosurgeons performed a corpectomy and diskectomy at L3-5 with placement of spinal…
A Minnesota Appellate Court has held that expert testimony was required to prove a plaintiff’s claim that the paramedic’s negligent transfer was the cause of a patient’s ankle injury and later resulted in a leg amputation. Mary C. suffered from various health problems and was a left-leg amputee. After she…
General practitioner physician Dr. Ram Thawani was the attending physician for Peter Gates during his hospitalization at Chicago’s South Shore Hospital on Oct. 23, 2009. Gates, 57, died from a brain herniation, which is a swelling of the brain, and a brain hemorrhage on Oct. 29, 2009. Gates was survived…
On June 1, 2009, the defendant surgeon Dr. Aaron Siegel agreed to assist a urologist during a urological surgery on 60-year-old Ivory Lakes at the Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, Ill. She had been a patient of Dr. Berger, the urologist, for about a year, treating for retroperitoneal fibrosis.…
The state of South Dakota has imposed a medical malpractice cap that leaves many who are injured or killed without a remedy. It was reported recently that a young woman who brought herself to a hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D., because she was carrying a dead fetus for removal from…
Anthony Bausal was transported by ambulance to the emergency department at OSF St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington, Ill., on Sept. 20, 2008. Bausal had a cellulitis infection in his left leg, increased pain and shortness of breath. He also had underlying conditions of lupus nephritis, cardiomyopathy and chronic anemia.…
At issue in this South Carolina Supreme Court case was whether the medical malpractice statute of repose applied to indemnify the claim of Columbia/CSA-HS Greater Columbia Healthcare System — also known as Providence Hospital. The trial court in the Court of Appeals in South Carolina held that it does and…