Articles Posted in Physician Assistants

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Mr. Doe, age 51, fell at home and injured his back. He went to an urgent care facility, complaining of back pain that did not improve with medication or application of cold or heat.

At the time, Mr. Doe did not complain of numbness and tingling. A doctor diagnosed thoracic back pain and prescribed Ibuprofen and physical therapy.

Two weeks later, Mr. Doe went to his first physical therapy appointment and reported that he had been unable to lie down because of severe pain. The treating physical therapist sent him back to the urgent care facility to be examined.
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Bryan O’Neal Roach, 23, went to a hospital emergency room complaining of chest pain. The physician assistant, Amber Harring, examined him. Diagnostic tests were ordered including an EKG, chest X-ray and bloodwork. Harring later discharged Roach after diagnosing atypical chest pain and febrile illness.

Unfortunately, later that morning, Roach died of an aortic dissection. He was survived by his parents.

The Roach family sued Harring, her employer, and her supervising physician, alleging they chose not to order a CT scan in light of Roach’s grossly abnormal chest X-ray, which showed a wide mediastinum. A mediastinum is an abnormal membranous partition between two body cavities or two parts of an organ, especially between the lungs. A widened mediastinum is indicative of an aortic aneurysm or an aortic dissection and other life-threatening conditions. This condition should have been diagnosed and treated as a medical emergency.
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