Articles Posted in Surgical Errors

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Margaret Brown, a 71-year-old retiree, was admitted to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Belleville, Ill., in October 2002 to undergo a coronary artery bypass surgery. During the initial stages of the bypass surgery, Brown suffered a pulmonary artery injury. It was claimed in the lawsuit that the artery injury was caused by the insertion of a Swan-Ganz catheterization.

The Swan-Ganz catheter is commonly used by passing a thin tube, which is the catheter, into the right side of the heart and the arteries leading to the lungs to monitor the heart’s blood flow or output during the surgery. The Swan-Ganz catherization is also used to inform doctors and surgeons of an abnormal blood flow. Its use is standard operating procedure for monitoring patient heart and blow flood output in invasive heart surgeries.

In this lawsuit, the family of Margaret Brown maintained that the use of the Swan-Ganz catheter was the cause of her death on Oct. 28, 2002. The family alleged that the defendant anesthesiologist, Dr. Daniel Gillen, was responsible. Their claim was medical battery in that the doctor chose not to obtain consent for the use of the Swan-Ganz catheter by the patient before the beginning of the surgery. Medical battery is a legal cause of action where the medical provider is claimed to have treated the patient without the patient’s consent.

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Melvin Jones received a cervical laminectomy on Feb. 6, 2008 by surgeon Dr. Martin Luken. Dr. Charles Beck, an internist at the same hospital, evaluated Jones after the surgery. Jones developed gastrointestinal issues, and Dr. Beck ordered a series of tests. Dr. Beck remained involved with Jones’s care over the next several days.

Dr. Beck had a scheduled vacation, and so he turned over the gastrointestinal care to Dr. Shibban Ganju. Dr. Ganju ordered additional tests, but shortly afterwards, Jones’s colon perforated. Because of the colon perforation, Jones had his colon removed and had a permanent ileostomy tube installed. On Dec, 4, 2008, Jones and his wife filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Drs. Beck and Ganju as well as the hospital in which he had received care.

In the lawsuit,. Jones alleged that the doctors chose not to properly treat and diagnose his condition. His wife, Loleather Jones, filed a claim for loss of consortium. Both the hospital and Dr. Ganju settled the case before trial and left Dr. Beck to defend at trial.

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Michael Jacobs, 32, suffered a compression fracture in his back at L1. For that condition he was seen by neurosurgeon Dr. Mudit Sharma, who prescribed pain medicine and a back brace. Jacobs’s condition then improved and he returned to full-time work. At a follow-up appointment, Dr. Sharma told Jacobs that he required a spinal surgery in which the surgeon would inject a kind of cement into the spinal bones.

Jacobs agreed to undergo the surgery. As a result of the surgery going awry, Jacobs claimed that he suffered a nerve injury that has left him with chronic pain and required expensive daily narcotic medications. He also alleged that the surgery caused leg atrophy. Jacobs was a construction superintendent earning about $98,000 a year before his fracture and surgery. Jacobs missed about 30 days of work because of the surgery,

Jacobs filed a lawsuit against Dr. Sharma and the owner of his practice group claiming that Dr. Sharma was negligent in performing the unnecessary back surgery. The lawsuit maintained that Jacobs was not an appropriate candidate for this spinal surgery and that Dr. Sharma had misplaced bone drills during the surgical procedure, which allowed hot cement to enter Jacobs’s spinal canal.

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Ms. Doe, 33, was injured in a car accident. She underwent leg surgery after the car crash. Her uninjured left leg was kept in the hemilithotomy position for more than six hours. While the injured leg was being repaired, which is held straight in traction, the uninjured leg is positioned above and is bent. Because of the position of the good leg, it does require some repositioning during a lengthy surgery like this. However, in this case, Ms. Doe was later diagnosed with compartment syndrome in her left leg, the uninjured leg, which necessitated surgery.

Ms. Doe underwent rehabilitation and was fitted with orthotics, but now she has difficulty walking and climbing stairs. Her medical expenses related to the uninjured left leg were $8,600.

Ms. Doe filed a lawsuit against her treating orthopedic surgeon and the hospital claiming that the defendants chose not to timely reposition her uninjured leg and timely diagnose compartment syndrome. The lawsuit did not request lost income.

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Ms. Doe, 17, experienced back and abdominal pain in her 34th week of the pregnancy. She was admitted to a local hospital where her condition deteriorated over the next several days.

Ms. Doe was then diagnosed as having sepsis and placed on a ventilator. After giving birth to her daughter, Ms. Doe’s respiratory status worsened, prompting a Code Blue. Despite efforts to resuscitate, she suffered a hypoxic brain injury resulting in cognitive impairment. Ms. Doe now requires 24-hour care and lives in a nursing home facility.

The lawsuit against the hospital claimed that the hospital’s respiratory therapists chose not to properly adjust Ms. Doe’s ventilator settings. It was alleged that the settings or the lack of the proper settings was the cause of Ms. Doe’s brain injury. The lawsuit did not claim lost income.

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Robert Cruz filed a lawsuit alleging medical negligence against Dr. Robert R. Schenk and Hand Surgery Ltd., his medical practice, claiming that Dr. Schenk had chosen not to follow the standard of care. In his lawsuit, Cruz said Dr. Schenk used excessive injections and failed to adequately explore or treat the superficial radial right nerve, all of which, it was claimed, injured Cruz.

The jury trial proceeded without incident, but during the jury deliberations, the jury sent two questions to the trial judge. The first one was, “Is the Jury making a decision on how Mr. Cruz got originally hurt or are we making a decision on the quality of care that . . . provided?” The second question was, “After reading the ‘proximate cause statement’ is the jury correct to assume to interpret it in the following way: That if we, the jury, believe that Dr. Schank (sic) is not the only cause for Mr. Cruz’s injury, then we decide with the defense?”

The trial judge met with the parties to discuss the court’s response. The attorney for Cruz stated that the jury’s question should be answered “specifically and accurately.” However, the lawyer did not provide what response should be given to the jury by the judge and gave no written response to the court to give to the jury.

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On March 10, 2007, Ramona Sue Yates was a patient in the emergency room at Memorial Hospital in Carbondale, Ill. She complained of severe back and abdominal pain. The defendant, emergency room physician, Dr. Daniel Doolittle, who was employed by the defendant Legatus Emergency Services, chose not to correctly diagnose or even suspect that Yates was suffering from a bowel obstruction and internal hernia.

Two years earlier, Yates, 47, had undergone gastric bypass surgery. Bowel obstruction is a known complication for patients following the weight-loss surgery.

Dr. Doolittle reportedly misdiagnosed Yates as having back spasms and had her admitted to the hospital for observation. Unfortunately, Yates died from the bowel obstruction the next day, March 11, 2007. She is survived by her husband and an adult son. She was employed as a nurse at a mental health facility.

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A Cook County jury was deadlocked after four days of deliberation in a case in which the plaintiff claimed she underwent an unnecessary coronary bypass surgery. Maryann Giannetti was 52 years old when she underwent a stress test at St. Joseph Hospital in Chicago. She claimed she was suffering “vague” chest tightness on Aug. 14, 2006. During the stress test, she experienced ventricular tachycardia, which can be potentially fatal because of the irregular heartbeat or arrhythmia. She experienced this condition while on a treadmill. A coronary angiogram was ordered.

The defendant, Dr. Uday Vyas, a cardiologist, and the defendant cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. William Bradshaw, interpreted the angiogram. They believed the angiogram showed 50% to 60% blockage of the opening of the left main coronary artery and 70% blockage of the proximal circumflex artery.

Because of the findings of blockage, the doctors ordered Giannetti to have a double coronary bypass surgery. She was never convinced that she needed the surgery and later showed the films to another cardiologist who told her there was no blockage whatsoever of any artery.

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Charles Blevins, 63, underwent outpatient arthroscopic knee surgery. Four days after the surgery, Blevins went to a hospital emergency room complaining of fever and a hot and swollen knee. He was diagnosed as having pseudomonas infection and required hospitalization for one month; during that time he received IV antibiotics.

The infection, however, destroyed Blevins’s right knee joint, which necessitated a total knee replacement and required revision about a year later.

Blevins filed a lawsuit against the surgical center alleging the use of unsterile surgical instruments. According to Blevins’s lawsuit, at least 3 other patients contracted the same type of infection during the 10-day period surrounding his surgery. The lawsuit did not claim lost income.

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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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