Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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Rickie Lee Hewitt consulted a urologist at The Iowa Clinic after receiving his prostate cancer screening results. He was 65 years old at the time. The urologist ordered a biopsy, which was sent to the clinic’s anatomical laboratory for interpretation.

Pathologist Dr. Joy Trueblood, the laboratory’s director, examined Hewitt’s slides and reported that she had found cancer in both sides of his prostate.

Hewitt then met with the urologist, who told him that he required a radical prostatectomy in order to survive his cancer. The surgery left Hewitt with erectile dysfunction and incontinence.
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Melina Greer, 25, went to a hospital emergency room complaining of a severe headache, neck pain and decreased and blurred vision. She received a neurological consultation from neurology resident, Dr. Basad Essa, who noted that she was having difficulty performing an optic fundus examination.

An emergency physician later discharged Greer with a diagnosis of a complex migraine.
Two days later, she returned to the hospital with complete vision loss. A lumbar puncture led to a diagnosis of idiopathic intracranial hypertension.

Greer sued neurologist Dr. Ruggero Serafini, whom she claimed had consulted on her case during the first hospital visit, alleging he chose not to timely diagnose intracranial hypertension. It was alleged had she undergone a simple fundus examination and lumbar puncture, Greer asserted she could have been timely treated with acetazolamide and an LP (lumbar peritoneal) shunt and avoided additional vision loss.
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Gail Ingram went to a hospital emergency room complaining of abdominal pain. She underwent a CT scan, which was interpreted by a radiologist, Dr. Barbara Blanco, as showing possible pancreatitis, a gallstone, and no acute bowel findings. Ingram was 61 years old at that time.

After a four-day hospitalization, she was instructed to consult her primary care physician. Less than two years later, she returned to the emergency room still suffering from abdominal pain. The CT scan revealed a 4-cm lung mass, which led to a lung cancer diagnosis.

Ingram, whose cancer was diagnosed at Stage IV, died just over a month later. She was survived by her husband and two adult children.
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The Illinois Appellate Court reversed the Will County associate judge’s April 2017 decision to deny plaintiff Susan Steed’s post-trial motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. In this case, Steed’s husband, Glenn Steed, suffered an Achilles tendon injury playing basketball. After the Feb. 17, 2009 injury, his right leg and ankle were placed in a cast two days after the injury by the defendant doctors at Rezin Orthopedics.

He was ordered to follow up in two weeks, but the receptionist at the defendant’s office did not schedule an appointment until March 13, 2009.

On Feb. 20, 2009, he told his wife that his cast was uncomfortable. Five days later he called the defendant’s office to have his follow-up rescheduled. The receptionist changed his appointment to March 12, 2009, but on March 8, 2009, he suffered a fatal blood clot that traveled to one of his lungs, resulting in his death.
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The Illinois Supreme Court unanimously ruled res judicata did not bar Gerald Ward from refiling his voluntarily dismissed lawsuit against Decatur Memorial Hospital. Although the decision of the Supreme Court was unanimous, it was split on the rationale. Ward was refiling a medical-malpractice lawsuit against Decatur Memorial Hospital for negligence that allegedly killed his brother, Clarence Ward.

A Macon County judge granted the hospital’s motion to dismiss the first three versions of Ward’s complaint. All of the orders included permission to replead, and none of the dismissals were “with prejudice,” though some claims were dismissed “without prejudice,” while other counts were asked without being labeled as “with” or “without” prejudice. As Ward fine-tuned the complaint, he abandoned some of the claims.

Shortly before trial was scheduled to start, Ward voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit under Section 2-1009 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure and then refiled the case within a year based on code Section 13-217.
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Six days after undergoing hip replacement surgery and rehabilitation, Alice Underwood, 82, was admitted to Victor Valley Global Medical Center for treatment of a urinary tract infection and dehydration. She suffered a surgical site infection while she was hospitalized, which caused her incision to separate.

Underwood underwent surgery to remove necrotic tissue, after which she was sent to a rehabilitation facility. Twenty-six days later, she died of cardiopulmonary arrest and infection. Underwood was survived by her three adult daughters and a son.

The Underwood family, through a daughter, individually and on behalf of the Underwood estate, sued the hospital alleging it chose not to provide wound care to Underwood for 12 days during her hospitalization. The lawsuit also alleged that the hospital’s nurse negligently sent Underwood to the rehabilitation facility without the appropriate and necessary antibiotics.
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Michelle Morrison, a senior account representative in the Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital’s billing department, sent a woman referred to here as “Jane Doe” and others “vile and shocking” letters on the hospital’s letterhead. Morrison was fired in July 2010 for using the hospital’s computer system for personal searches.

After this incident, Doe filed a lawsuit against the hospital alleging that Morrison’s actions “severely and adversely impacted the health and well-being of the [plaintiff].” Plaintiff claimed that Morrison’s letter was harassing and caused her emotional injuries.”

Morrison was criminally charged and eventually pleaded guilty to felony forgery charges. She testified at her deposition that she took home 50 patient records while she was employed. The hospital denied liability and claimed that Morrison’s “rogue behavior and criminal conduct” was the proximate cause of Doe’s injuries.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago has affirmed the dismissal of a Federal Tort Claims Act lawsuit sounding in medical malpractice filed by plaintiff Anna Chronis. She claimed that in June 2015, when she visited the University of Illinois Mile Square Health Center for her annual physical examination, the pap smear procedure did not detect cervical cancer. However, the procedure allegedly caused an injury, pain and bruising, she claimed.

After her Pap smear procedure, she claimed she tried to follow up with her physician, Dr. Tamika Alexander, but was unable to reach her. The complaint stated that the Health Center did not return Chronis’s calls or allow her to make a follow-up appointment. Chronis filed a written complaint with the health center’s grievance committee, requesting $332 for the expenses that she incurred because of the pap smear injury. But after reviewing her letter complaint, the Health Center rejected her request.

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) was dismissed when the district court judge found that Chronis had decided not to exhaust her administrative remedies because she had chosen not to make a sum certain demand to the appropriate federal agency before filing her lawsuit.
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In December 2015, the plaintiff, Michael Burke, who was then 73 years old, underwent a scheduled hernia repair at Northwestern Medicine-Kishwaukee Hospital in DeKalb, Ill.

After this hernia repair surgery, his blood pressure dropped and he complained of severe abdominal pain. Burke’s family asked the surgeon, Dr. Stephen Goldman, to look in on Burke, but Dr. Goldman allegedly said that he would not do so until he was finished with other patients.

At about 6 p.m. that same day, Dr. Goldman performed an exploratory surgery and found Burke’s abdomen was full of blood. An hour later, Burke’s wife noticed her husband had weakness on the left side of his face, he was unable to fully open his left eye, his lip was drooping and his speech was slurred.
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A Texas Appellate Court has held that a trial court had not erred in denying a defendant’s motion to dismiss based on a plaintiff expert physician’s failure to perform the procedure at issue in the case within the last 20 years.

Alice Waggoner sued physician Dr. Carl Jones, maintaining that he breached the standard of care by performing an endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) before running another noninvasive test to determine whether an ERCP was necessary.

Under Texas law, the plaintiff served the defendant with an expert report by Dr. Perry Hookman, a board-certified physician in both internal medicine and gastroenterology.
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