Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice

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Mary McNair had knee replacement surgery at Rush University Medical Center. The surgery did not go as expected and left her with permanent injuries. On April 8, 2014, she filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Rush University Medical Center alleging medical negligence related to the anesthesia and post-anesthesia care. She sought discovery from one of the named respondents in discovery pursuant to the Illinois statute. The respondent in discovery was Dr. Asokumar Buvanendran. The trial judge entered an order requiring written discovery to be answered by July 17, 2014. Dr. Buvanendran filed responses to all of the interrogatories by the date set by the court. Dr. Buvanendran also responded to requests for additional production of documents by the deadline of Aug. 4, 2014.

The trial judge ordered a deposition of Dr. Buvanendran to take place on Sept. 8, 2014. Dr. Buvanendran sat for that deposition as was required.

Two weeks later, McNair filed an emergency motion for “an extension of time to convert respondents in discovery to defendants,” alleging that she needed additional time to complete discovery from other respondents in discovery. Her motion claimed that she needed discovery from these other respondents in order to decide whether she would make Dr. Buvanendran a party defendant.

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John Pluard, 51, fell from an attic and landed on a concrete surface 14 feet below, fracturing his leg and left elbow. Pluard was admitted to Harborview Medical Center where he underwent leg surgery to repair his fractured leg, but not to his arm.

After the surgery, Pluard reported increased pain in his left arm for which he was given morphine. Almost seven hours later, an orthopedic surgeon examined him. The doctor increased his morphine dose and saw him again the next morning. Pluard later lost most of his neuromotor functioning in his hand.  Despite emergency surgery, he does not have a functioning left hand.

Pluard had worked as a carpenter earning about $46,500 per year and has not been able to return to work. He and his wife sued the hospital, maintaining that it chose not to timely diagnose and treat compartment syndrome, which was the source and cause of his arm injury. The jury entered their verdict in favor of both Pluard and his wife for $1.58 million.

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Deshawn Gray, 25, suffered a left tibial fracture in a motorcycle accident. He was transferred to St. Joseph Hospital where he was admitted by orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jacqueline Mlsna. Dr. Mlsna ordered a femoral nerve block with a postsurgical catheter and then did an open reduction internal fixation surgery to repair the fracture.

Within three hours of the surgery, Gray developed severe pain, paresthesia and paralysis of his left foot and toes. Three hours after that, Gray’s attending nurses notified anesthesiologist Dr. James Maney, who allegedly advised the nurses to tell Dr. Mlsna about Gray’s symptoms. However, the nurses chose not to do that or follow up.

Over the next two days, Dr. Mlsna’s partner, orthopedist Dr. Shawn Tracy, noted that Gray had a numb and motionless foot.  Dr. Dr. Tracy allegedly attributed this to a possible surgical nerve injury.

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A Will County jury has found that a stroke suffered by the son of Kathy Nakamura was not preventable by anticoagulant treatment by his physicians. In this medical-malpractice lawsuit, it was alleged that several physicians chose not to treat the medical conditions of Kathy Nakamura’s son, Joseph Welsh, which led to his suffering two strokes in five months. He was left with severe mental deficiencies after the second stroke in April 2009.

Welsh was admitted to Edward Hospital in Naperville, Ill., in November 2008. He was seen by neurologist Konstantine Dzamashvili, M.D. and Rizwan Bajwa, M.D. after he suffered a stroke caused by a blood clot in his brain. Welsh had a history of smoking and hypertension and cholesterol issues. The doctors believe that the blood clot came from somewhere in his neck or his brain stem. They tested Welsh for atherosclerotic heart disease; the test came back negative. When imaging tests were done, it showed that Welsh had a membrane open between the right and left sides of his heart.

Welsh was also tested for Factor V Leiden thrombophilia, which is a hereditary disorder that can increase the risk of blood clots in the veins.

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Danielle Reardon underwent endoscopic sinus surgery with bilateral septoplasty at Tinley Woods Surgery Center in Tinley Park, Ill., on Dec. 7, 2005. The surgery was completed by the defendant, Dr. Joseph Gavron, who is an otolaryngologist. Dr. Gavron was to treat Reardon’s chronic pansinusitis and deviated nasal septum. At the end of the surgery, Dr. Gavron packed her nose with gel, foam and gauze soaked in a topical antibiotic. No oral post-op antibiotics were prescribed by Dr. Gavron.

She experienced what were described as unbearable headaches while recovering the next day. With no relief from the headaches, she took two doses of Vicodin. Continuing with the unbearable headaches, Reardon called 911 and was transported by ambulance to Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill., where she given two doses of morphine and the antibiotic Unasyn.

She later became unresponsive with an altered state of consciousness. She was then treated empirically with broad spectrum antibiotics for bacterial meningitis.

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Thirteen-year-old Doe became ill and developed a high fever. Doe’s mother brought him to a Kaiser Permanente Urgent Care facility where Doe underwent testing. Before all the tests were returned, Doe was discharged and told to see his primary care physician in a week or two. It was revealed that one of the tests indicated a high sedimentation rate. There was no follow-up regarding this test result.

Doe’s condition worsened over the next week. He was brought into a hospital emergency room where testing showed lesions on his brain. Doe suffered a stroke during surgery, which necessitated another surgery as well as physical therapy and other treatment.

Fortunately, Doe has made a complete recovery. Doe sued Kaiser Foundation Health Plan alleging that it chose not to timely diagnose the sinus infection.

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Business owner Kevin Orr, 42, went to a hospital emergency room complaining of dizziness, headache and inability to stand. A CT scan, interpreted by the radiologist and defendant, Dr. James Bell, showed blockage of blood vessels supplying blood to Orr’s brain. However, this was not reported by the physician’s assistant who ordered the scan.

Dr. Bell concluded that the CT scan was normal and showed only sinusitis. Orr was diagnosed as having a sinus infection and was then discharged.

Orr returned to his primary care physician’s office in the next two weeks and reported vomiting and headaches. The physician’s assistant again diagnosed sinusitis. Three weeks after Orr’s emergency room visit, he suffered a massive stroke resulting in permanent disability, including impaired gait, facial pain and tingling, and arm and leg numbness.

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A  man with impaired cardiac, respiratory and cognitive function was diagnosed as having a benign brain tumor. This was a tumor that — in most cases — could have been safely removed by a neurosurgeon. A neurosurgeon, known here only as Dr. Roe, performed the surgery to extract the tumor. However, Dr. Roe was unable to remove the mass during the surgery.

As a result of a failure to remove the tumor, the patient suffered vision loss and balance problems after the procedure. He died of unrelated causes 22 months later.

His family sued Dr. Roe and the clinic where Dr. Roe worked, claiming that Dr. Roe chose not to follow an accepted approach in the surgery to remove the tumor.

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The family of Jill Prusak brought a medical malpractice lawsuit against a doctor and two hospitals. Prusak died in November 2013. The lawsuit brought by Sheri Lawler on behalf of the family of Jill Prusak was filed in April 2014 within the two-year statute of limitations for a wrongful-death case. The lawsuit contended that the medical malpractice occurred in November 2007 when a doctor “failed to order appropriate diagnostic testing,” which would have revealed that Prusak’s symptoms were caused by cancer.

Section 13-212(a) sets out a two-year statute of limitations for medical-malpractice claims and ends by declaring: “But in no event shall such action be brought more than 4 years after the date on which the act or omission or occurrence alleged in such action to have been the cause of such injury or death.”

The lawsuit for medical malpractice was filed in August 2011 within the two-year statute of limitations so the case would continue. Utilizing the relation-back statute (Section 2-616(b)), the Prusak family argued that the complaint saved the wrongful-death claim from the statute of repose.

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On Aug. 4, 2011, Jill Prusak filed a medical malpractice case within both the two-year statute of limitation and four-year statute of repose under Section 13-212(a). The lawsuit contained a two-count complaint against the defendants, University of Chicago Medical Center and other medical providers who have since been dismissed from the case. It was alleged that Dr. Rama Jager misdiagnosed Prusak’s macular pathology and that this misdiagnosis led to the defendants’ choosing to not recognize nervous system lymphoma.

The first count alleged negligence against the University of Chicago defendants and asserted that Dr. Jager was an agent or apparent agent of the University of Chicago defendants.  The second count of the complaint made the same allegations with respect to Advocate defendants and the Christ Hospital defendants.

Prusak died on Nov. 24, 2013 after the expiration of the four-year statute of repose. On March 11, 2014, the trial court granted Prusak’s daughter, Sheri Lawler, leave to file an amended complaint, substituting herself as party plaintiff and as the executor of Prusak’s estate.

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