Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice

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Maria Lastra-Rico was 45 years old when she underwent a breast biopsy. A pathologist interpreted the test as showing invasive ductal carcinoma; she underwent a double mastectomy with lymph node resection and subsequent surgical reconstruction.

She later learned that she in fact had ductal carcinoma in situ, which is noninvasive ductal carcinoma.

Lastra-Rico sued the pathologist and the pathologists’ supervisor who provided a second opinion claiming liability for the misdiagnosis. Lastra-Rico then maintained that had the defendants performed a staining procedure to confirm and ensure the proper diagnosis, she would have undergone a lumpectomy and radiation and avoided the mastectomies altogether. The lawsuit did not claim lost income. After the jury trial, the jury entered a verdict in the plaintiff’s favor in the amount of $2,230,000.

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Cynthia and Kenneth Williams’s first child was born with sickle cell anemia. After the birth of their first child, the Williamses found out that they both had the sickle cell trait in which a normal gene is paired with the allele that causes sickle-shaped hemoglobin.

Individuals who carry this sickle cell trait usually don’t have symptoms of the blood disorder because their normal gene creates functional hemoglobin. However, when a baby is born from parents who both have the sickle cell trait, there is a 25% chance of getting two of the abnormal genes and the full-blown sickle cell disease for the child.

The Williamses were unwilling to take a chance with a second baby, and Cynthia decided to have tubal ligation. However, Cynthia became pregnant again allegedly because her physician, Dr. Byron Rosner, failed to close off one of her fallopian tubes during the sterilization surgery.

The Williams’s second child was born with the sickle cell disease.

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On Dec. 29, 2008, Camilla Hayes, 76, came to the emergency room at Rush Oak Park Hospital complaining of abdominal pain. The emergency room doctor, Dr. Joseph DiPiazza, did not order a complete cardiac workup. She was later diagnosed and treated for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). However, Hayes was in process of being discharged from the hospital after four and a half hours in the ER when she suddenly collapsed and died. She is survived by two adult children. No autopsy was performed and the parties agreed that she most likely died from a sudden cardiac arrest based on her multiple risk factors for cardiac disease, including hypertension, high cholesterol, morbid obesity and a history of smoking.

The family filed a lawsuit against the doctor and his practice, claiming that Dr. DiPiazza was negligent in choosing not to properly evaluate Hayes’ symptoms from a cardiac standpoint, choosing not to diagnose her cardiac condition, choosing not to order cardiac enzyme tests and serial EKGs, and discharging her instead of admitting her to a telemetry floor for observation.

The family also maintained that the hospital nurses did not determine the exact location of Hayes’s burning discomfort at the time of triage and chose not to initiate the nursing standing orders for unexplained chest pain.

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Karol Stawarz was complaining to his primary care physician, Dr. Victor Forys, about his lower abdominal pain. Dr. Forys diagnosed gastroenteritis and prescribed medicine. He also told Stawarz to follow up in 24 hours or go directly to the hospital if his condition got worse.

On the following day, Stawarz went to a hospital where he was diagnosed as having a perforated appendix. Stawarz required an emergency appendectomy and later developed a fistula, which necessitated a temporary colostomy.

Stawarz and his wife  sued Dr. Forys and his medical practice, claiming that Dr. Forys chose not to timely diagnose the appendicitis by ordering a stat CT scan and sending Stawarz directly to the hospital after that examination.

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Guadalupe Ramirez had a history of congestive heart failure.  She was also an insulin-dependent diabetic, had mitral valve regurgitation, atrial fibrillation, rheumatic heart disease, high blood pressure and a prosthetic heart valve.  Ramirez, 72, underwent a cardiac catheterization procedure on Nov. 21, 2003.  Eight days after the procedure, Ramirez presented to the emergency department at the University of Illinois Hospital (UIC) complaining of groin pain.

The defendant, Dr. Joan Briller, was the attending cardiologist for the first 24 hours of her admission.  Dr. Briller and other physicians considered a retroperitoneal bleed in their assessment, but did not order a CT scan until about 22 hours later.

All parties agreed that a retroperitoneal bleed is a recognized complication of cardiac catheterization and often occurs in the absence of negligence.

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A 34-year-old patient, Sally Arbogast, underwent a vaginal delivery but experienced sharp abdominal pain and moderate bleeding right afterward.  She had delivered her last child by a Cesarean section. The obstetrician who cared for her performed a manual exploration and curettage procedure to rule out uterine scar rupture and later diagnosed uterine atony — a loss of tone in the muscles in the uterus.  It has been noted that 90% of all postpartum bleedings are associated with uterine atony, which is the failure of the uterine muscles to contract normally after the baby and placenta are delivered.

For an hour and a half, Arbogast remained hypotensive and tachycardic. Her blood work showed lower hemoglobin and hematocrit levels compared to before the baby was born.

While the doctors were looking into the patient’s hypotension, she coded.  After resuscitation measures and a blood transfusion, Arbogast received multiple units of packed blood cells and fresh frozen plasma over the next five hours.

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A medical malpractice lawsuit was filed by Daniel R. Hemminger, who sued the defendants Jeffrey LeMay, M.D. and Sterling Rock Falls Clinic Ltd. for damages related to the death of his wife, Tina.  The lawsuit alleged that the defendants, in choosing not to correctly diagnose and treat Tina’s cervical cancer in a timely manner, was the cause of her death by lessening her chance for survival. 

This is called the lost chance doctrine supported by the case of Holton v. Memorial Hospital, 176 Ill.2d 95 (1997) in which the Illinois Supreme Court held that “to the extent a plaintiff’s chance of recovery or survival is lessened by the malpractice, he or she should be able to present evidence to a jury that the defendant’s malpractice, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, proximately caused the increased risk of harm or lost chance of recovery.”

In this case, the trial judge granted the defendants’ motion for a directed verdict after the close of plaintiff’s case alleging that plaintiff failed to present evidence sufficient to establish that Dr. LeMay’s negligence proximately caused Tina’s death under a lost chance of survival.  The plaintiff appealed.

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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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Michael Mals, 57, underwent a hip replacement at Lutheran General Hospital on Aug. 14, 2008.  He was given Coumadin, a blood thinner, to prevent deep vein thrombosis (DVT).  Three days later he was transferred to a nursing home for rehab where his INR (international normalized ratio) became supratherateutic and Coumadin was discontinued.  In other words, his blood became too thin for his well-being. 

Mals was readmitted to Lutheran General Hospital on Aug. 28, 2008 with an elevated INR level, suspected internal bleeding and an elevated white blood count. He was diagnosed with a bleed within the left iliacus muscle and bilateral DVTs.  He was restarted on Coumadin, and he returned to the nursing home on Sept. 2.

On Sept. 11, 2008, Mals was readmitted to Lutheran General with elevated INR and anemia, placed on Lovenox anticoagulant therapy and sent back to the rehab facility.

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A Will County, Ill., jury entered a $1,066,000 verdict against an orthopedic surgeon, David Burt, M.D.  Virginia Faletti, 82, underwent endoscopic carpal tunnel release surgery on her right wrist at Edward Hospital.  The surgery was done to relieve pressure on the median nerve because of crowding within the carpal tunnel of the wrist. 

Dr. Burt, however, cut the median nerve during the surgery.  After the procedure, Faletti felt pain and numbness in the right hand and wrist, but Dr. Burt chose not to recognize that he had cut the median nerve.  Instead, Dr. Burt prescribed medicine for the nerve pain as well as a brace and physical therapy, which did not resolve Faletti’s symptoms. 

Later, Faletti sought a second opinion and was eventually diagnosed with a transected median nerve by a neurosurgeon.  The neurosurgeon then referred her to a plastic reconstructive surgeon who performed nerve repair surgery. During this procedure, the doctor noted the right median nerve had been completely transected except for one nerve fiber. 

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