Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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Despite testimony that a quicker response by a Cook County hospital’s staff could have increased a patient’s chance of survival by ten percent, a Chicago jury finds in favor of the defendant doctors and hospital. The Cook County medical malpractice lawsuit of Estate of Edward W. Dornhecker, deceased v. Dr. Robert E. Applebaum, SSM Regional Health Services d/b/a St. Francis Hospital & Health Center, 07 L 13665, was brought by the decedent’s family after he died of heart surgery complications.

In 2005, Edward Dornhecker underwent coronary artery bypass graph surgery at St. Francis Hospital, now called MetroSouth Medical Center, in Blue Island, Illinois. The surgery was performed by Dr. Robert Applebaum and all reports indicated that the surgery had gone well. However, the next evening, Dornhecker began to experience problems breathing. His oxygenation progressively worsened to the point that he needed to be intubated transferred to the ICU.
Upon his transfer to the ICU at 4:00 a.m., one of the nurses noted a foul-smelling, brown liquid coming from the decedent’s chest. The liquid was coming from the area from where a chest drainage tube had been removed the prior morning. The nurse called the on-call cardiologist and pulmonologist to report a “foul-smelling fecal matter” oozing from Dornhecker’s chest. However, it was not until Dr. Applebaum arrived at the hospital hours later that anything was done.

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According to a recent survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association, male physicians age 55 or older are twice as likely to be sued for medical negligence as younger women doctors. This survey and other similar findings are the basis of a recent program on Radio Health Journal – “Do Women Make Better Doctors?”
In order to get the perspective of the legal community on whether or not females in fact make better doctors, Radio Health Journal interviewed Chicago medical malpractice attorney Robert Kreisman. Kreisman explained that in his experience, most medical malpractice lawsuits arise out of a failure to communicate between the patient and physician. While sometimes this communication failure might simply result in the patient feeling negatively about his medical care, in other instances it could lead to a misdiagnosis or medical negligence.

Kreisman generalizes that “most times that I’ve heard from potential clients about a physician that they feel chose not to communicate well with the patient or family, it tends to be a male.” However, the show also suggests that perhaps more male doctors are being sued not because women are necessarily better doctors, but for other reasons. For example, traditionally men have dominated high-risk medical fields, such as surgery or obstetrics, while women have generally remained in fields that don’t get sued as often, like pediatrics or family practice.

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In medical malpractice lawsuits, documentation is key in proving both the plaintiff’s and defendant’s cases. A jury is much more likely to believe what is documented in the chart than testimony that is generally provided several years after the alleged medical malpractice took place. However, when something is not documented in the chart, then it is up to both parties to convince the jury that their version of the events is true.

In the Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit of Dolores Murray v. Diane Price-Gordon, R.N., 06 L 9083, the plaintiff was unable to convince the jury that the defendant nurse had acted negligently. Instead, the jury sided with the defendant and her version of the events despite the lack of support provided by the medical chart.

In Murray, the plaintiff claimed that the defendant nurse’s failure to monitor the plaintiff’s vital signs led to her permanent upper extremity paralysis. However, the nurse maintained that she had properly monitored and observed the plaintiff and that her actions were not responsible for the plaintiff’s paralysis. While the plaintiff relied more on the lack of documentation in the medical chart, the defendant relied more heavily on medical experts’ testimony to prove her case.

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In order to prove medical malpractice occurred, the plaintiff’s attorney needs to show not only the plaintiff experienced a poor medical outcome, but that it was directly caused by medical negligence. In the Kane County medical malpractice lawsuit of Melissa Nyquist v. Dr. Taras Masnyk and DuPage Neurosurgery, S.C., 06 L 421, the plaintiff’s attorney was unable to convince the jury that the plaintiff’s medical complications were caused by the defendants’ negligence.

The case facts centered on a spinal surgery the 34 year-old plaintiff had undergone at Central DuPage Hospital. Melissa Nyquist required a lumbar back fusion for a herniated disc at the L4-5 level. As part of the surgery, Dr. Taras Masnyk inserted four metal screws into the plaintiff’s spine. The screws were needed to stabilize the spine and fix the fused vertebrae in place.

However, following the spinal fusion, Nyquist began to experience foot drop in her right foot. A CT scan was taken to try and identify the underlying neurological problem that might be causing the new symptom. The radiology results showed that the surgical screw placed at the right L4-5 area had breached the medial wall and was actually extending into the spinal canal. And while the offending screw was removed the next day, Nyquist continued to experience right foot drop, along with lower back pain and sciatica, i.e. leg pain.

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In order to prove medical negligence, a plaintiff needs to demonstrate that the doctors or nurses operated outside of the standard of care, i.e. the regular level of care required in a given situation. If the plaintiff fails to demonstrate that the doctors or nurses acted outside the normal standards, then the court will likely rule that there was no medical negligence even if faced with a negative medical outcome.

Take for example the nursing home negligence case of Attorney General of Illinois v. Westwood Manor, et al. The case was brought by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office after an elderly resident at Chicago’s Westwood Manor nursing home facility died from burn-related injuries. The 81 year-old resident had received second and third degree burns after being bathed by one of the nursing home’s nurses. The case was complicated by the fact that there was over a two week delay in treating the burns. As a result of the burn injury, both of the nursing home resident’s legs needed to be amputated and she died less than three months later from related complications.

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A Cook County judge denied a defendant’s motion for a change of venue in an Illinois wrongful death case despite the fact that several defendants and witnesses did not live in Cook County. And even though the trial judge did deny the venue change, he expressed his discomfort with the lack of clear guidelines when deciding venue. Despite this apparent confusion, the appellate court affirmed his decision in Susan Isom v. Riverside Medical Center, et al., No. 1-11-0426.

The case at issue in Isom dealt with a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Susan Isom on behalf of her late son, Tyrone Brooks. According to Isom’s Cook County lawsuit, Brooks’s death was due to the failure of the defendant doctors and clinics to diagnose Brooks’s sickle cell anemia. The alleged medical malpractice or the validity of the estate’s wrongful death claims were not the issue of the appellate court’s appeal; the court was simply examining whether Cook County was the correct venue for the claim.

The appellate court noted that the determination regarding a case’s venue is at the discretion of the trial court, which must consider both public and private interest factors when deciding the issue of venue. The court noted that the relevant private factors include the venue’s convenience to the parties, the ease of access to sources of evidence in that venue, and any other practical problems. Public factors would then include the interest in deciding controversies locally, the burden of imposing expenses on forums with little connections to the controversy, and docket congestion.

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A recent Wall Street Journal article focused on new developments in research on how our brain reacts to pain. The article revealed that new research has demonstrated that we have a lot of control over how we interpret pain and that new methods are being developed to try and train our brains to feel less pain, especially in the case of those experiencing chronic pain.

For example, Stanford University’s Neuroscience and Pain Lab has conducted studies where subjects watch their own brain scans while reacting to pain. Researchers then work on training the subjects to focus on something else instead of the pain. Distracting oneself from the pain lessens our perception of the pain and in essence takes some of the pain away. The more the subjects work at re-evaluating their pain, the less interference the pain had in their day to day lives.

This idea of refocusing one’s attention away from the pain has been used by laymen for years. When a child falls and hurts himself, his mother might try to distract him from his cuts and scrapes with a special treat. Or having women in labor focus on breathing techniques to try and remain calm through the pain. So while this research might seem obvious to many, it is only recently that researchers are studying the underlying science and figuring out new ways to apply these findings to pain therapy.

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A Chicago man sustained a worse medical injury as a result of a radiologist’s error. And while the resulting medical malpractice case settled, the plaintiff brought an additional institutional negligence lawsuit against the hospital. The second lawsuit, Oscar Salinas v. Advocate Health and Hospital Corp., 09 L 3233, went to trial, where the jury entered an $150,000 verdict against the defendant.

Both lawsuits arose as a result of a visit the plaintiff, Oscar Salinas, made to Dr. Jose Ramillo, a radiologist at Advocate Christ Hospital. Salinas was a 40 year-old forklift operator and had injured his knee at work. After taking an x-ray of Salinas’s knee, Dr. Ramillo diagnosed Salinas’s injury as water on his knee, i.e. a fluid build up around the knee joint, and discharged him.

However, a few days later Dr. Ramillo reviewed Salinas’s x-rays at the request of another physician at Advocate Christ Hospital. Upon second review, Dr. Ramillo revised his original diagnosis and entered a revised report stating that Salinas had a hairline fracture. However, neither Salinas or his physical therapist were never informed of this change in diagnosis and subsequently did not modify his treatment; Salinas continued to apply weight-bearing pressure to his injured leg.

After Salinas completed his physical therapy treatment, he underwent an MRI to determine why he was still having knee pain. The MRI revealed that the previously hairline fracture had expanded to a 2 cm. fracture. So instead of being a minor, easily treatable injury, Salinas had to undergo an open reduction internal fixation (ORIF) surgery and additional physical therapy. As a result, he lost additional time from work, which amounted to $10,000 in lost wages.

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A Will County jury found in favor of a Wilmington, Illinois nursing home in a wrongful death lawsuit in which the decedent’s family claimed the nursing home failed to provide adequate care. The not guilty verdict in Martin Donegan v. Embassy Care Center, 05 L 782 (Will County), came despite evidence that the nursing home had failed to perform a neurological exam following the resident’s fall.

The Illinois nursing home malpractice suit involved 53 year-old Martin Donegan. Donegan was a resident at Embassy Care Center due to his paranoid schizophrenia diagnosis. In July 2005, the nursing staff found Donegan out of his bed and in another patient’s room. While in that patient’s room, Donegan had fallen and hit his head.

While the typical procedure following any sort of fall is to perform a neurological assessment, which could include assessing a patient’s reflexes, gait, and general behavior, the nursing staff failed to do so. Instead, Donegan was simply returned to his own bed and a phone message was left for his treating physician. The treating physician failed to return that call and no further steps were taken following Donegan’s fall.

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Pre-eclampsia is a medical condition that affects one in twenty pregnancies and can lead to various complications for the mother and child, including stroke, seizures, or even death. Pre-eclampsia can be diagnosed during the second trimester and occurs when the mother develops hypertension, i.e. high blood pressure, or unusually high concentrations of protein in her urine. While there is currently no treatment for pre-eclampsia, a recent study published in Reproductive Sciences could help identify those women at risk for developing pre-eclampsia.

The article, titled “Placental Protein 13 and Decidual Zones of Necrosis: An Immunologic Diversion That May be Linked to Preeclampsia,” was published by Harvey J. Kliman, MD, PhD, a research scientist operating out of Yale University, and several other scientists. The article focused on recent findings Kilman and his colleagues had unearthed about the role of Placental Protein 13 (PP13) and what this could mean for pre-eclampsia patients.

PP13 is a protein made by the placenta during pregnancy. Prior research had found PP13 levels to be very low among women who develop pre-eclampsia; however, the role of PP13 in pregnancy had previously been unknown. In the present study, the doctors studied placentas from normal pregnancies that had been terminated prior to the 14th week of gestation. They not only found the PP13 to be concentrated in maternal tissue surrounding the veins running under the placenta, but also found a high degree of necrotic maternal tissue in the same area.

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