Articles Posted in Surgical Errors

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In many medical malpractice lawsuits, plaintiffs are critical of physicians for failing to make proper referrals or diagnose a condition in a timely fashion. However, if the patient does not keep appointments or take some responsibility in their own care, then it is difficult to find fault with the physician.

In the Illinois medical malpractice case of Melissa Brooks, Loren Brooks v. Surendra Gulati, M.D., 08 L 838, the plaintiff was critical of her physician, Dr. Gulati, for failing to diagnose a vascular tumor in her spine. Brooks first presented to Dr. Gulati in January 2002, at which point she relayed that she had been having back pain, tingling, and numbness for the past several months.

In response to these complaints, Dr. Gulati referred Ms. Brooks for an MRI of her lumbar and thoracic spine. He then conveyed the radiology results to her over the phone – the report suggest a possible arterial venous malformation, or a possible benign spinal tumor. In order to follow up on these findings, Dr. Gulati claimed he ordered an additional MRI of Ms. Brooks’s brain and scheduled a follow up appointment.

However, the 27 year-old Brooks did not follow through with the additional brain MRI, nor did she show up for her scheduled visit with Dr. Gulati. This missed visit was at the center of Brooks – the plaintiff contended that Dr. Gulati should have contacted her after the missed appointment, whereas Dr. Gulati contended that he had acted within the standard of care and was not responsible for making sure Ms. Brooks kept her appointments.

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In medical malpractice lawsuits, there is sometimes a thin line between what constitutes negligence and what does not. Take for example the Cook County lawsuit of Jennifer Irwin v. Alan B. Loren, M.D. and Daniel R. Conway, M.D., Advanced Surgical Associates, S.C., 08 L 2760. The defendant doctors committed a surgical error while removing the plaintiff’s gallbladder; however, the jury found the doctors were not guilty of medical negligence.

The surgery at issue in Irwin took place at Northwest Community Hospital in March 2006. The 43 year-old plaintiff was scheduled to have her gallbladder removed in a laparoscopic cholecystectomy procedure performed by Dr. Alan Loren. Performing a surgery laparoscopically means that the surgeon relies on a camera to see inside the body’s internal structures. Doing so allows the surgeon to make a much smaller incision and drastically decrease recovery time. However, this also means that the surgeon is not directly looking at the relevant organs and needs to correctly interpret what is seen on the camera.

Unfortunately, in Ms. Irwin’s case, Dr. Loren did not correctly interpret the camera’s images, at least not at first. Dr. Loren initially misidentified Irwin’s common bile duct as the cystic duct. As a result of this misidentification, Dr. Loren incorrectly clamped the common bile duct with surgical clips and cut it. The common bile duct is responsible for carrying bile from the liver and gallbladder into the upper part of the small intestine and is an important component of the digestion process.

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Medical malpractice lawsuits are composed of two main elements: negligence and damages. Therefore, simply showing that a medical provider’s treatment is negligent is not enough – a plaintiff must also show that the negligence led to a significant amount of damages. In the Cook County medical malpractice lawsuit of Cindy Zaleski v. Elmhurst Eye Surgery Center, Kovach Eye Institute, Ltd. and Dr. Kevin Kovach, 08 L 7387, the issue was whether or not the plaintiff’s damages were extensive as she claimed.

The medical negligence case dealt with an eye surgery Cindy Zaleski had when she was 19 years-old. Zaleski underwent a phakic intraocular lens implantation surgery to correct the nearsightedness in her left eye. This particular surgery involves implanting a plastic or silicone contact lens in the eye and is meant to eliminate the need for eyeglasses or disposable contacts.

Phakic lens surgery is a fairly new procedure, therefore the long-term risks are not known. However, the short-term risks include: possible vision loss, retinal detachment, infection, and the development of increased intraocular pressure. This last risk is what happened in Zaleski’s case. After undergoing the eye surgery at Elmhurst Eye Surgery Center, she developed increased pressure in her left eye. Her medical malpractice complaint alleged that the defendant ophthalmologist, Dr. Kevin Kovach, failed to diagnose and treat this pressure in a timely fashion.

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A Loyola University Medical Center patient suffered brain damage after undergoing two separate surgeries during the same hospital admission. The second surgery was required to fix surgical errors made during her initial surgery. The woman’s surviving family sued the Chicago hospital for its surgical negligence and received a $2.5 million settlement.

The forty-five year-old decedent presented to Loyola University Medical Center to undergo a laparoscopic procedure to remove dense adhesions in her pelvic region. Everything appeared to go well during the surgery and the decedent was taken to the post-op care area and then transferred to the floor for additional post-operative care and monitoring.

However, she continued to complain of severe abdominal pain, above and beyond what one would expect following this type of surgery. Her pain continued despite the high levels of post-operative pain medications she was given. In addition, the decedent developed shortness of breath and began to have an increased heart rate. Together, these various symptoms indicated that perhaps something was wrong.

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An Illinois obstetrician appealed a $500,500 medical malpractice verdict against him in Lisa Babikian v. Richard Mruz, No. 1-10-2579. Dr. Mruz argued that the plaintiff’s attorney had prejudiced the Cook County jury against him. The appellate court disagreed and dismissed the defendant’s mistrial claims. However, the appellate court did grant the defense attorney’s request for a set-off, reducing the jury verdict by the amount of a prior settlement involving the same case.

The Babikian medical malpractice lawsuit arose out of preventable surgical errors Dr. Mruz committed while performing a diagnostic laparoscopy on Ms. Babikian. The purpose of the procedure was to determine whether or not Ms. Babikian suffered from endometriosis, a condition involving the cells lining the uterus. During the relatively simple surgical procedure, Dr. Mruz managed to pierce Ms. Babikian’s transverse colon.

This surgical mistake required Ms. Babikian to undergo corrective surgery, extensive hospitalization, and the placement and eventual reversal of a colostomy. In addition, the plaintiff developed abdominal pain, intestinal problems, and hernias as a result of the surgical negligence. The plaintiff and her now ex-husband brought an Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Mruz and the medical center where the surgery was performed.

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A $1 million jury verdict award was entered against a Cook County surgeon and his surgical center for their negligence during an eye surgery. The surgical error left the 24 year-old plaintiff, Cindy Zaleski, with a permanent eye injury. Cindy Zaleski v. Elmhurst Eye Surgery Center, et al., No. 08 L 7387.

In 2006, Ms. Zaleski presented to the Kovach Eye Institute in order to undergo a procedure to correct her nearsightedness. Dr. Kevin Kovach recommended Zaleski undergo a phakic intraocular lens implant procedure, which involved implanting a corrective lens behind the eye’s cornea. This type of procedure is typically performed on patients whose nearsightedness too severe to undergo a standard LASIK procedure.

Zaleski required the eye surgery for both her right and left eyes. And while the right eye procedure was uneventful, she was left with permanently distorted and blurred vision in her left eye. The Cook County medical malpractice alleged that her vision loss was a direct result of Dr. Kovach’s surgical negligence.

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A Cook County wrongful death lawsuit involving the death of a 45 year-old woman was settled by the decedent’s estate for $1.35 million. The Illinois lawsuit dealt with claims of medical negligence on behalf of the defendant surgeon and the hospital where he as employed. Jerry Markbreit for the Estate of Betsy Markbreit v. Jose Velasco, M.D., et al., 07 L 8703.

The Illinois surgical malpractice began in 2004, when Ms. Markbreit was admitted to Rush North Shore Medical Center to have a benign growth on her thyroid gland. Prior testing had indicated that the benign growth was limited to the right side of Ms. Markbriet’s thyroid gland, a finding that was confirmed on the surgical report. Yet the surgeon, Dr. Jose Velasco, elected to perform a total thyroidectomy on the decedent.

The Cook County medical malpractice claim was critical of the surgeon’s decision to perform a total thyroidectomy. Ms. Markbreit had only been scheduled for a partial thyroidectomy and given the fact that her benign growth was isolated to one side of her thyroid gland there was no medical reason to perform a total thyroidectomy. This lack of medical necessity was significant because the plaintiff’s wrongful death lawsuit traced all of Ms. Markbreit’s subsequent medical problems and eventual death back to the unnecessary total thyroidectomy.

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When undergoing a major surgery, as patients we tend to focus on the risks associated with the surgery itself: will the doctor cut something he shouldn’t, will I have a bad reaction to anesthesia, or will my body reject the new heart. However, in some instances the period following the surgery can be just as risky as the surgery itself.

Take for example The Estate of Shamiran David v. Rush North Shore Medical Center, et al., 07 L 8444, an Illinois wrongful death lawsuit involving the death of fifty-nine year-old Shamiran David. Mrs. David presented to Rush North Shore Medical Center in July 2005 for an aortic valve replacement and coronary artery bypass surgery. While the complex surgery went well, Mrs. David’s post-operative care was mismanaged, leading to her death less than six months later.

Following her heart surgery, Mrs. David was placed on Coumadin therapy, which is the common procedure following a mechanical aortic valve replacement. Coumadin is a drug that works to decrease your blood’s clotting ability in order to prevent blood clots from forming. However, it is important for patients taking Coumadin to be on the right dosage. If too much Coumadin is given, a patient is at increased risk for bleeding; however, if too little is given, then the patient is at risk for getting blood clots.

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Any time a patient undergoes a surgical procedure, doctors warn us of the various risks and complications that could result from the surgery. Yet what duty do physicians have to be prepared to handle the potential complications of a surgical procedure? Are they excused from medical negligence if a patient dies as a result of a known complication of surgery? Or do they have a duty to do everything in their power to try and beat the odds and save the patient?

Take for instance the facts surrounding the Illinois wrongful death lawsuit of Estate of Abraham Pinarkyil v. Resurrection Medical Center, et al., No. 07010009. The case involves the death of a 45 year-old man who died after undergoing surgery to remove a benign tumor in his heart. Even though the man’s tumor was benign, the surgery was necessary because even benign tumors can be life threatening by impairing heart function and blood flow.

The heart tumor was removed at Resurrection Medical Center and immediately following the surgery there were signs of problems. Instead of having improved cardiac function following the removal of his benign tumor, Mr. Pinarkyil began to experience cardiac abnormalities. These abnormal heart symptoms should have alerted the medical staff that he was possibly going into shock.

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Chicago plaintiff Fahineh Jalalipour received a $1.27 million jury verdict in her Cook County surgical negligence lawsuit, Fahineh Jalalipour v. Farhad Saed, M.D., 07 L 14120. The medical negligence centered around a routine bladder surgery that the 50 year-old elected to undergo in an attempt to correct her urinary incontinence. However, as sometimes happens when medical malpractice is involved, the cure was worse than the original ailment – Ms. Jalalipour was left with painful urination and bleeding, which was only corrected after the plaintiff underwent additional surgeries.

The medical malpractice involved a routine bladder suspension surgery that was meant to correct Ms. Jalalipour’s urinary incontinence by adjusting the location of the bladder in her abdomen and relieving pressure from the pelvic floor. The surgical procedure was performed by Dr. Farhad Saed at Thorek Memorial Hospital, who reported no complications following the surgery. However, in the days following the surgery, Ms. Jalalipour immediately reported finding blood in her urine and experiencing severe pain.

While Dr. Saed dismissed Ms. Jalalipour’s problems as a simple infection, the pain and bleeding did not respond to antibiotics. Eventually, Ms. Jalalipour was forced to consult two additional urologists, both of whom investigated internal causes for her pain. Ms. Jalalipour underwent two different cystoscopies, a diagnostic procedure that investigates the insides of one’s lower urinary tract, which would include the bladder. On her second cystoscopy, which took place over a year after her routine bladder surgery was performed, the urologist discovered the presence of three sutures sewn inside of her bladder.

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