Articles Posted in Hospital Errors

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On March 10, 2007, Ramona Sue Yates was a patient in the emergency room at Memorial Hospital in Carbondale, Ill. She complained of severe back and abdominal pain. The defendant, emergency room physician, Dr. Daniel Doolittle, who was employed by the defendant Legatus Emergency Services, chose not to correctly diagnose or even suspect that Yates was suffering from a bowel obstruction and internal hernia.

Two years earlier, Yates, 47, had undergone gastric bypass surgery. Bowel obstruction is a known complication for patients following the weight-loss surgery.

Dr. Doolittle reportedly misdiagnosed Yates as having back spasms and had her admitted to the hospital for observation. Unfortunately, Yates died from the bowel obstruction the next day, March 11, 2007. She is survived by her husband and an adult son. She was employed as a nurse at a mental health facility.

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Butch Borden, 51, underwent lower back surgery by neurosurgeon Dr. Tom Staner. While Borden was recuperating, he developed weakness and sensory deficits in his legs. Dr. Staner instructed Borden to go to Brookwood Medical Center, where testing there revealed a small hematoma in the lower back. A hematoma is where a pool of blood gathers in an area of the body for different reasons. Borden was then admitted to the hospital.

While overnight in that hospital, Borden developed urinary incontinence and lost the use of both legs. This development was not communicated to any of Borden’s treating physicians, including Dr. Staner.

The next morning, however, Dr. Staner examined Borden and ordered an urgent CT scan and myelogram, which showed a large hematoma, another pool of collecting blood, compressing Borden’s cauda equina. The cauda equina, which is Latin for horse’s tail, is a bundle of spinal nerves and spinal nerve roots that run through the second to fifth lumbar nerves in the back. The compression of the cauda equina is a serious neurological condition and can cause loss of function. The cauda equina syndrome is caused by the compression of nerves at the end of the spinal cord.

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A 65-year-old woman, we’ll call her Ms. Doe, underwent a successful elective surgery at a California hospital and was later transferred to a private room. The woman was stable by midnight that day, but three hours later nurses found her unresponsive. A code blue was called and despite resuscitation efforts, Doe’s condition deteriorated. She died of cardiopulmonary arrest. Doe had been retired and was survived by her husband and two adult children.

The family of Doe sued the hospital and several nurses claiming that a malfunctioning medication pump had caused Doe to receive an overdose of morphine. In addition, the lawsuit claimed that an inadequate pulse oximetry alarms prevented the nurses from timely responding to Doe before she became unresponsive. The defendants denied that they had chosen not to attend to Doe’s hypoxia state in a timely fashion. Before trial, the parties settled for $375,000.

In some cases, morphine, which is an extremely potent pain drug, can give rise to severe and often deadly side effects for patients who have an intolerance to this drug.  There are many effective pain medication alternatives to the use of morphine for patients who have a history of harmful side effects.

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An Alabama medical negligence case that found its way to the state supreme court, arose out of a jury’s verdict in the amount of $3.2 million. The verdict came in favor of the family of Lauree Ellison involving medical malpractice and hospital negligence at Baptist Medical Center East (BMCE).  The trial court denied the defendant’s post judgment motions seeking a new trial, or in the alternative, a reduction in the judgment.  The motion to reduce the verdict amount was based on the statutory cap contained in the Alabama code.

On Sept. 3, 2005, Lauree Ellison was treated in the emergency room as a patient of Baptist Medical Center East in Montgomery, Ala.  She was 73 years old and suffered from a number of chronic pre-existing medical conditions.  Ellison was there for an evaluation after she had fallen at her home. 

While she was in the emergency room, she mentioned that she had a sore throat.  An emergency room physician ordered a strep test, which was negative. The exam lab results showed that Ellison did not have an infection, and the x-rays that were done were unremarkable for injuries from her fall. She was then discharged and returned home.

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The plaintiff in this case, Lee Ann Sharbono, filed a lawsuit claiming medical negligence against the defendant Dr. Mark Hilborn, a board-certified radiologist. In the lawsuit it was alleged that Dr. Hilborn had chosen not to timely diagnose Sharbono’s breast cancer.  After the trial, the jury found for Dr. Hilborn and against Sharbono.  She filed post-trial motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, for new trial and for rehearing, all of which the trial court denied. This appeal was taken.

In August 2006, Sharbono was diagnosed with breast cancer in her left breast.  It had spread to her nearby lymph nodes under her left arm. She underwent extensive treatment including a modified radical mastectomy of her left breast.

The lawsuit in this case arose out of a diagnosis that was made by Dr. Hilborn in November 2004.  Sharbono, who was then 39 years old, went to see her primary care physician because she was experiencing fatigue, weight gain, aches and pain.  The doctor ordered a screening mammogram. That mammogram and an ultrasound were claimed to have been misinterpreted.

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Andrew Hanson, 49, was injured at his job.  He went in to see his family practice physician, Dr. Ronald Davis, who diagnosed a crushed injury to his chest.  Hanson then underwent a work-up, which showed a left chest contusion.

The next day, Hanson experienced other symptoms, including shortness of breath.  Dr. Davis told Hanson that his injury would take time to heal. Two days later, Hanson met with Dr. Davis; Hanson was suffering from extreme hypotension (low blood pressure) among other symptoms.  Dr. Davis referred Hanson for a CT scan, and he was then diagnosed as having a heart attack.

He is now totally disabled and unable to continue his job as a truck driver; until his injury and illness, he was earning about $50,000 a year.

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Ronald Cobb underwent surgery to insert an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill.  When the procedure was completed on Feb. 3, 2009, Cobb was  51.  Just two hours after the surgery, Cobb suffered a myocardial infarction in the recovery room and passed away.

His family brought a lawsuit alleging that the defendant doctors were negligent in that they withheld his Plavix medication and chose not to perform an angiogram before this surgery.  It was claimed that the failure to do the angiogram resulted in simultaneous stent thrombosis in two coronary arteries. 

The defendants maintained that discontinuation of Plavix was appropriate under the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guidelines. The defendants contended that Cobb did not require an angiogram.  The jury agreed with that proposition and found in favor of the doctors and their practice group.

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In November 2008, 26-year-old Heather Hinshaw underwent gallbladder surgery at Trinity Medical Center in Rock Island, Ill.  The general surgeon who did the surgery thought he saw a stone in the common bile duct during an intraoperative cholangiogram, which is a procedure using a catheter to inject dye into the gallbladder to better visualize the blockage using X-ray.  He referred the patient to a gastroenterologist, the defendant Ahmad Cheema, M.D. 

A few hours after the gallbladder surgery, Dr. Cheema decided to perform an endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), but he did not look at the cholangiogram results or discuss the case with the referring general surgeon.

Hinshaw did not have jaundice, yellowing of the skin, or any other symptoms of a stone in the common bile duct at the time. During the ERCP procedure, Dr. Cheema introduced a guidewire into the pancreatic duct and the wire curved back on itself puncturing the patient’s pancreatic duct.

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Tony Love, 13, came through the emergency department at Ingalls Memorial Hospital complaining of left knee pain and a fever on Sept. 23, 2007.  He was diagnosed with a quadriceps strain and was sent home. 

The next morning, Sept. 24, 2007, Love was seen by the defendant physician, Dr. Arun Shah at Harvey Health Center for complaints of continuing knee pain, but his temperature was normal. 

Dr. Shah diagnosed Love as having a sprained knee.  Three days later on Sept. 27, 2007, Love was taken to South Suburban Hospital with a high fever, severe knee pain and inability to walk. The lab work there showed an elevated white blood count and elevated liver enzymes as well as a blood culture that revealed methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in the knee.

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In September 2007, 55-year-old Barbara Ann Drebek-Doyle underwent a CT scan of the sinuses due to her recurrent sinusitis condition. The test was performed at Advocate Condell Gurnee Outpatient Radiology Center. The scan was interpreted by the defendant Dr. David E. Foosaner, a radiologist.  In a lawsuit that was filed by Ms. Drebek-Doyle, she contended that Dr. Foosaner chose not to detect and report a brain mass or tumor that was seen on the CT scan. As a result, the tumor remained undiscovered and untreated for 3.5 years. 

In March 2011, an MRI of the brain showed the brain mass at the top center of Ms. Drebek-Doyle’s head. Surgery was done to remove the benign mass, a meningioma that was in the membrane lining of the brain. Meningioma occur most frequently with women; they cause various types of symptoms.  Some symptoms include chronic headache, nausea, vomiting and balance issues. If the tumor is not removed fairly quickly, there is a risk that it may increase in size and cause much more serious effects, including death.

The plaintiff maintained that if the radiologist defendant had reported the mass in 2007, it could have been removed at that time. Instead, the delay caused Ms. Drebek-Doyle to suffer various problems over the next 3 ½ years, including increased headaches, loss of balance, memory deficits, bowel incontinence and fatigue. 

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