Articles Posted in Misdiagnosis

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In May 2001, Michael Hamilton was a worker at the Behr Process Corp. plant in Chicago Heights, Ill., when he began experiencing severe pain.  He was taken by ambulance to St. James Hospital in Chicago Heights, Ill. 

At the hospital, Hamilton was met by Dr. Jose Almeida.  Within a few hours, Hamilton was discharged saying that his pain had ended.  He was instructed to see his primary care physician the next day.  However, the next day Hamilton was found dead in his mother’s apartment.  An autopsy revealed that Hamilton died of pericardia tamponade, which is blood surrounding the heart as a result of an aortic dissection.

The mother of Hamilton, Evelyn Hart, filed a lawsuit in Cook County claiming that the hospital, St. James and Dr. Almeida, as well as the doctor’s employer, Excel Emergency Care LLC, were negligent. 

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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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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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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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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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A confidential settlement was reached wherein a 63-year-old woman’s misdiagnosed lung cancer led to her untimely death. The woman, identified only as Doe, underwent a CT scan while she was hospitalized. This showed a lung lesion that the interpreting radiologist reported as possible cancer. A hospitalist reported these findings to Doe’s primary care physician. 

The primary care physician referred Doe to a pulmonologist but did not tell her that cancer was suspected.  The hospital sent Doe’s CT scan to the pulmonologist, who reported to the primary care physician that part of the scan was missing. The primary care physician allegedly said that he would provide the missing film. However, there was no followup. The pulmonologist also chose not tell Doe that cancer was suspected when the two subsequently met.

Five years later, Doe developed shortness of breath and other ominous symptoms. Doe was diagnosed with having Stage IV lung cancer; she died two months later. Doe was survived by her husband and two adult children. Doe’s husband filed a lawsuit against the primary care physician and the pulmonologist claiming that these defendants chose not to follow up on the radiologist’s suspicion of lung cancer. The lawsuit did not claim any lost income.

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It is estimated that 250,000 people die each year in the United States as a result of medical malpractice according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Approximately 80,000 Medicare patients suffer preventable adverse events that contribute to their deaths; as many as half of those deaths are due to emergency room errors. 

In 2003, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office stated that “181,000 severe injuries (attributable to medical negligence) occurred in U.S. hospitals [,]”.  These numbers show that medical malpractice deaths have worsened during the past ten years. Despite this increase, state governments and legislatures have tried to impede the amount of money recoverable to injured or killed persons and/or their families as the result of medical malpractice. 

For example, in Missouri, where I have been a member of the bar since 1976, nearly 1/3 of medical malpractice cases involve surgery in some way. The next largest percentage of medical errors reported there is 18.7% for misdiagnosis leading to severe injury or death followed by 13.2% involving falls or injuries during transport of patients. 

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A Cook County jury has decided that Northwestern Memorial Hospital was not negligent after a back surgery on 83-year-old JoAnn Smith went wrong. 

On Aug. 5, 2010, Smith underwent an L4-5 microendoscopic foraminotomy and discectomy at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for management of her back pain. After the surgery, she was diagnosed with multiple deep vein thromboses, pulmonary embolism and a blood clot in her right internal jugular vein. Heparin was given to help with the clotting issue.

On Aug. 8, 2010, Smith developed abnormal neurological signs and symptoms. An MRI revealed internal bleeding and cord compression in the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine. An emergency decompression surgery was done.

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Danute Paulaviciene, 57, came to the office of the defendant internist, Dr. Edmund Vizinas, on Dec. 27, 2008 complaining of fever, shortness of breath and poor sleep. She had recently visited the caves in Missouri. On examination, she was noted to have a fever of 100.5 degrees, pulse of 110, respirations of 16 and 94 percent oxygen saturation level.

Dr. Vizinas ordered a chest x-ray, complete blood count and metabolic profile. The patient returned to Dr. Vizinas two days later and told him she was feeling better and had no shortness of breath on exertion. Her temperature was normal. Dr. Vizinas told her that her chest x-ray revealed extensive bilateral infiltrates, her complete blood count was essentially normal with a normal white count and a slight rise in neutrophils and her metabolic profile showed slightly decreased albumin, elevated sedimentation rate, slightly decreased total cholesterol and slightly elevated liver function.

Dr. Vizinas started her on Avelox, an antibiotic given for community acquired pneumonia. On Dec. 31, Paulaviciene’s daughter-in-law checked on her at 4 a.m. and found that she had a fever, but by 6 a.m., it had come down. At 8 a.m. she was coughing but not gasping or having difficulty breathing. However, by 9 a.m., she was extremely short of breath, gasping and unable to speak. She was rushed to Edward Hospital in Naperville, Ill., with severe shortness of breath and 82 percent oxygen saturation levels while on oxygen. She was sent to the ICU at the hospital and placed on a ventilator. Her condition never improved, and she died 11 days later survived by her adult son and a daughter who lives in Lithuania.

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