Articles Posted in Misdiagnosis

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A Cook County circuit court returned a $3.76 million verdict in the case of Estate of Michael Hamilton v. Excell Emergency Care, LLC, et al., No. 07 L 6654. The Cook County medical malpractice alleged that the decedent, Michael Hamilton, would still be alive if not for the preventable emergency room errors committed at St. James Hospital.

Hamilton presented to the emergency room at St. James Hospital in Chicago Heights complaining of abdominal pain. Hamilton had been at work in a local paint factory when he began feeling dizzy, sweaty, nauseous, and having severe chest pains. Co-workers reported that he was pounding his chest with his fist and laying down in extreme pain. They called an ambulance and he was rushed to the emergency room.

However, by the time that Hamilton presented to the emergency room his severe pains had diminished substantially. Jose Almeida, M.D., the emergency room physician treating Hamilton, failed to document the details of Hamilton’s symptoms and pain at work. Therefore, rather than investigating the cause of Hamilton’s severe pain, he was simply diagnosed with abdominal pain and sent home with no further instructions.

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When dealing with emergency situations, oftentimes minutes can make a difference in the patient’s outcome. So in the case of Margaret Kaiser-Sperl, a five day delay in diagnosing her impending stroke led to her death. A Cook County medical malpractice lawsuit was brought by her husband against the hospital that failed to timely diagnosis her medical emergency; Richard R. Sperl, Jr., as independent administrator of the Estate of Margaret Consuelo Kaiser-Sperl, deceased v. Advocate Health and Hospitals Corp., et al., No. 09 L 012104.

Ms. Kaiser-Sperl was a 45 year-old nurse and mother of two who presented to the emergency room at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital with complaints of recent balancing problems and hearing loss. Alan Kumar, M.D., the emergency room doctor, incorrectly diagnosed her symptoms as migraine headaches and sent her home. However, a look back at those emergency room records revealed that Ms. Kaiser-Sperl was actually having a transient ischemic attack, which is a precursor to a stroke.

Within five days of her emergency room discharge, Ms. Kaiser-Sperl returned to the emergency room. Her symptoms were similar to her prior visit, but this time she also had dizziness, facial droop, and weakness in her left arm. While this time the emergency room physicians recognized the seriousness of her condition and admitted her, it did not help to prevent her from suffering from a massive stroke. Within a week of the second ER admission, Ms. Kaiser-Sperl was dead as a result of the earlier emergency room error.

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Many times medical negligence and errors result in permanent disabilities that patients need to live with for the rest of their lives. However, car accidents can also lead to permanent disabilities, or life-changing medical conditions. The Illinois personal injury lawsuit of Joseph Krzystof v. Jeremy Valencia, 08 L 14321, is a perfect example of when car accidents result in life-changing medical injuries.

The Illinois intersection accident occurred after the defendant, Jeremy Valencia, ran a stop sign. Valencia was on his way home from high school and broadsided Joseph Krzystof’s car, which had the right of way. Initially, while there was obviously a lot of property damage to both vehicles, it appeared that both parties escaped the crash fairly unscathed. However, six weeks after the accident Krzystof was diagnosed with a detached retina.

A retinal detachment occurs when the eye’s retina, the layer of tissue inside the eye that is responsible for sending messages along the optic nerve to the brain, breaks away from its normal position. Because the retina plays such a key role in how our brain interprets visual messages, a retinal detachment can lead to temporary or permanent blindness and is considered a medical emergency.

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A $14.9 million settlement was reached in an Illinois medical malpractice case that left the plaintiff with permanent brain damage. The lawsuit of Jennifer Lee v. Palos Community Hospital, et al., 09 L 7824, was brought against the hospital where the plaintiff was treated, as well as the individual doctors who treated the plaintiff.

In 2009, plaintiff, Jennifer Lee, presented to Palos Community Hospital with severe dehydration from vomiting and diarrhea. The typical treatment for dehydration is to pump the patient with IV fluids and monitor their electrolyte levels. When Ms. Lee presented to the hospital, her initial blood work showed an extremely high level of sodium. While normal sodium levels range from 135 mmol/L to 145 mmol/L, Ms. Lee’s sodium level was at 165 mmol/L.

Typically, dehydration results in low sodium levels, not high sodium levels. Blood sodium levels can indicate whether there is an imbalance between the levels of sodium and water in your body. While Ms. Lee’s initial sodium levels were critically high, it fluctuated between critically high and critically low during the course of her admission. In fact, it was this change from critically high, to critically low, then back to critically high that caused the plaintiff’s brain damage and was the subject of her medical malpractice lawsuit.

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A $4.5 million settlement was reached between Advocate Christ Hospital and Medical Center and the family of a man who died after his bladder ruptured at the Chicago hospital. The claims in the wrongful death case of The Estate of Krzysztof Bialas v. Advocate Christ Hospital and Medical Center, No. 07 L 12141, were that the decedent’s death could have been avoided if the hospital’s radiologist had correctly read a CT scan that would have identified the problem.

The decedent, Krzysztof Bialas, was a 42 year-old warehouse worker who presented to Oak Lawn’s Christ Hospital with a fractured pelvis after being injured in a forklift accident at his job. Nursing notes from the hospital visit indicated that Bialas’s scrotum was extremely swollen. In response to this observation, doctors ordered a CT scan of Bialas’s abdomen and pelvis.

While Bialas’s fractured pelvis was appropriately diagnosed by x-ray, the radiologist failed to recognize the presence of a large amount of fluid in Bialas’s pelvic area. The medical malpractice complaint filed by the decedent’s estate alleged that it was this radiology error that ultimately led to Bialas’s death.

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A Cook County medical malpractice claim against Northshore University Health Systems for $1.2 million. The lawsuit, Deborah Bowden and Bryce Bowden v. NorthShore University Health Systems, et al., No. 09 L 8801, involved allegations that several physicians in the Evanston health clinic failed to recognize that the plaintiff was exhibiting symptoms of an impending stroke. As a result of this failure to diagnose Ms. Bowden’s stroke in a timely manner, the plaintiff ended up suffering a stroke which left her with permanent muscle and speech limitations.
The circumstances leading to the Illinois failure to diagnose lawsuit arose out of two office visits occurring over a period of five days in August 2007. The 53 year-old Bowden presented to NorthShore University Health System complaining of numbness and tingling in her hands and feet. She was sent home and the medical records indicated that the physicians she saw missed all the indications that she was at risk for a stroke.

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A Cook County medical malpractice settlement for $5 million was approved by Cook County Circuit Court Judge William B. Maddux, marking the close of the Illinois lawsuit of The Estate of Shamiran David v. Rush Northshore Medical Center, et al., No. 07 L 8444. The Chicago medical negligence lawsuit was brought by the family of a woman who suffered a brain injury in the days following her heart surgery at Rush Northshore Medical Center.

While Mrs. David’s aortic valve replacement and coronary artery bypass grafting performed at Rush Northshore Medical Center went well, it was the complications following the surgery that led to Mrs. David’s brain injury and subsequent death. The case of Mrs. David can serve as a reminder to both patients and doctors that a successful surgery alone does not guarantee a positive outcome for a patient.

Mrs. David was discharged from the hospital following her surgery and sent home. However, the 59 year-old Cook County resident began to develop complications from her cardiac surgery within a few days of her discharge. She presented to her primary care physician with complaints of difficulty breathing and chest pains.

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A Cook County medical malpractice lawsuit received a jury verdict of $1.1 million against the defendant hospital. The case revolved around the medical negligence of a Cook County hospital, which led to need for several additional surgeries for the 60-some year-old plaintiff.

In 2006, the plaintiff was a patient at Northwest Community Hospital, where she had recently undergone a knee replacement surgery. In her second day of recovery following her surgery, the plaintiff fell while using the bedside commode in her hospital room.

Considering that the plaintiff had just had a knee replacement surgery, she was at risk for falls and should have had a plan of care in place that would prevent such falls from occurring. Upon investigation, it seemed that the plaintiff did in fact have such a plan of care in place – her physician had written an order stating that the plaintiff needed her knee immobilizer on and required two people to assist her when using the bedside commode.

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After reviewing a Cook County medical malpractice lawsuit for non-economic losses, a United States District Court judge for the Northern District of Illinois awarded the plaintiff $6.7 million in non-economic damages. Maldonado v. Sinai Medical Group, No. 06 C 4149 (April 2, 2010).
The Chicago medical malpractice case was brought by a Chicago man who developed paralysis from the waist down after being discharged from Chicago’s Mt. Sinai Hospital with an ongoing spinal infection. While the Chicago hospital had diagnosed the infection and began treating it with IV antibiotics, it discharged the patient before the infection was gone.

Two weeks after his discharge, the Chicago native was unable to control his bladder or walk and was rushed to Rush University Medical Center. The ongoing spinal infection had continued to eat away at the man’s vertebrae, which resulted in the removal of portions of his spine and ribs. The plaintiff underwent six surgeries during three months of hospitalization and was left paralyzed from the waist down.

The plaintiff brought a medical malpractice claim against the employees of Chicago’s Mt. Sinai Hospital. However, because the hospital’s employees were agents of the U.S. Public Health Service the Cook County medical malpractice case fell under the Federal Tort Claims Act. According to rules of the Act, the federal government was substituted for the hospital and its workers in the medical malpractice claim. The federal government admitted liability on behalf of the hospital. Therefore the only remaining issue for the judge to rule on was non-economic damages.

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