New York Medical Malpractice

A few months back we reported on a woman who filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the Brooklyn Hospital Center for misdiagnosing kidney stones, which in turn left her a quadruple amputee. Now comes the fantastic news of her receiving high end prosthetic hands and legs.

After just two months at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, Mullings has already mastered the art of walking on artificial legs. Now she’s being fitted for bionic hands that respond to electrical impulses, and she could be released from the hospital as soon as Feb. 3.

The hands have a sensor that will press against her stump and read the impulses generated when she flexes her forearm muscles, activating a motor that opens and closes the fingers. A cosmetic glove matched to Mullings’ skin color will fit over the prosthetic shell, making it look like the real thing.

A jury in Westchester, New York has awarded a local family $7 million in a medical malpractice suit after a family member was misdiagnosed and died from severe brain damage. The woman even had several times to be correctly diagnosed with the pancreatic inflammation she had and was not.

The White Plains jury returned the verdict against the medical center to Supreme Court Justice Nicholas Colabella after a three-and-a-half-week trial and a day of deliberations. It awarded $3 million to Capwell’s three daughters, ages 7, 9 and 11 at the time of her death, and $4 million to her husband, Scott Capwell.

Livingston said Theresa Capwell was admitted to the medical center on Sept. 18, 2000, with symptoms indicating pancreatitis, an inflammation of the pancreatic gland, but doctors spent two weeks running tests for cancer.

When you enter a hospital for a routine procedure, you expect to come out of there as good or even better than when you entered. However, New York hospitals are becoming more and more unsanitary, and hospital infections “kill more people each year than AIDS, breast cancer and traffic accidents combined”.

Despite historical claims from hospitals that such infections are unavoidable risks associated with surgery, the reality is that most hospital-contracted infections are preventable through adherence to simple hygienic practices. These practices include mandating the hospital staff to wash their hands and properly sanitizing all surgical equipment.

There has been a recent wave of medical malpractice lawsuits against hospitals for hospital-acquired infections. For instance, a jury recently awarded over $2.5 million to a patient who contracted a staph infection during heart surgery. This is just one example of many successful trials around the country.

There has been renewed pressure on hospitals to do something about the problem. For one, New York hospitals are now required to report their hospital-acquired infection rates to the New York State Department of Health. Second, Medicare now refuses to reimburse for certain hospital-acquired infections, a development that means hospitals will be forced to pay the medical costs associated with the treatment of these illnesses.

A Brooklyn, New York woman has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the Brooklyn Hospital Center for a misdiagnoisis that left her a quadruple amputee. Tabitah Mullings went into the hospital with back pain and ended up a day later with both her feet and hands amputated and blind in an eye.

She was examined, given pain killers and sent home. The next day she returned to the hospital and was diagnosed with a sepsis infection that had already blocked circulation to her hands feet, and right eye. Doctors were eventually forced to amputate her hands and feet, and Mullings was blinded in her right eye.

She remains hospitalized, but hopes to return home in the coming weeks. "My goal is to walk out of this hospital, with my hands and my legs, walking out of here before Christmas, so I can spend the holiday with my beautiful children and family," Mullings told reporters on Friday. Her lawyers maintain that she wasn’t properly screened during her initial visit.

Curious about the difference between civil and criminal medical malpractice? An article for OBGManagement.com highlights the differences between the two and which might apply in your case.

Happily, criminal prosecutions for malpractice are rare in the United States—far, far less common than civil suits for malpractice. Nevertheless, criminal prosecutions do occur and seem to be increasingly frequent in recent years. Consider that, between 1809 and 1981, approximately 15 criminal cases involved the prosecution of a physician for medical malfeasance1; by contrast, between 1985 and 2004, another 15 cases were heard in US courts—every one involving the death of one or more patients.2

The two cases that I present in this article, both involving ObGyns, illustrate the distinguishing features of criminal and civil malpractice in the eyes of the law. My goal? To answer a question you may be considering: Am I safe from criminal prosecution for harm that comes to a patient at my hands?

Check out the rest of the article

here

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In New York and places like Indiana the problem of negligence is significant to the issue of medical malpractice. For instance, the NWI Times reports:

Chris and Karen Bartzis accepted a $1.25 million settlement last month from the Indiana Patient’s Compensation Fund and Munster-based pediatrician Azra Sheriff in connection with their son’s death. The now-divorced couple sued Sheriff in Lake County Superior Court after a medical malpractice panel found in 2006 that the doctor committed malpractice in caring for the toddler.

It is the second time a panel determined malpractice in Sheriff’s care of a patient, the state compensation fund’s online database shows.

Only 10 percent of complaints filed with the panel are found to involve malpractice, according to a Times review of data in the Indiana Patient’s Compensation Fund 2007 annual report.

Although it found malpractice in the Bartzis’ case, the medical panel determined Sheriff’s conduct did not harm or cause the death of Christopher.

Its interesting in this Indiana case that even though they didn’t cause the death of the kid, the government was still held to be responsible in this malpractice case.

The FDA has pointed to a handful of drugs that increase the risk of death. The AP reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food and Drug Administration warned doctors Monday that prescribing a certain group of psychiatric drugs to seniors suffering from dementia can increase their risk of death.

Anti-psychotic drugs are approved to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disease, but doctors frequently prescribe them to treat elderly patients with dementia.

FDA’s announcement was an update to a 2005 action, when regulators added warnings about increased heart attacks and pneumonia to drugs called aytpical antipsychotics. The medicines include blockbusters like Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zyprexa and Johnson & Johnson’s Risperdal.

FDA said Monday those same risks apply to 11 older drugs known as conventional antipsychotics, including thorazine and prolixin. The drugs were developed in the 1950s and have largely been replaced by the newer medications, which are believed to have fewer side effects, such as tremors.

If you have taken these drugs and have suffered and injury as a result, you should seek legal counsel.

In a knock to its national reputation, Walgreens settles a case in which it defrauded consumers and medicaid. The Hartford Courant highlights:

Walgreens has agreed to pay $35 million to 42 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the federal government to settle allegations it switched the form of three generic drugs it dispensed, between capsules and tablets, to overcharge the Medicaid program.

Connecticut will receive $126,488 from the settlement announced Wednesday, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said.

Walgreens is the third pharmacy chain to settle a whistle-blower lawsuit by Illinois pharmacist Bernard Lisitza involving generic drug switching, which spurred a federal-state investigation. CVS Caremark paid $37 million to settle this year, and Omnicare Inc., the nation’s largest pharmacy company for nursing homes, paid $50 million in late 2006.

Walgreens, when dispensing for people on Medicaid, allegedly switched prescriptions for ranitidine, the generic form of anti-ulcer drug Zantac, from 150 mg or 300 mg tablets to capsules so it could charge more.

The pharmacies allegedly substituted tablets of fluoxetine — the generic of anti-depressant Prozac — for 10 or 20 mg capsules. Also, capsules were allegedly substituted for 5 mg tablets of selegiline — the generic of Eldepryl, used to treat Parkinson’s disease and senile dementia. Walgreens was accused of making the switches from July 2001 through 2005.

Hopefully, other companies will avoid the ethically suspect character of Walgreens and opt for the ethical highroad for business practice. No one wants to be the next ENRON.

If you’ve experienced an injury that related to your medical health it can be very complex and complicated to find out what to do. Findlaw provides some guidance:

Q: Does someone who is not satisfied with the results of his or her surgery have a malpractice case?
A: In general, there are no guarantees of medical results, and unexpected or unsuccessful results do not necessarily mean negligence occurred. To succeed in a medical malpractice case, a plaintiff has to show an injury or damages that resulted from the doctor’s deviation from the standard of care applicable to the procedure.

Q: What should I do if I think I have a medical malpractice claim?
A: You should talk to a lawyer who specializes in such cases, as soon as possible. Tell the attorney exactly what happened, from your first visit to the doctor or other health care provider, through your last contact with him or her. If possible, obtain your medical records and bring them to your first meeting with the attorney. There are time limits governing how long someone may wait to bring a medical malpractice claim, so time is of the essence.

Q: What is “informed consent”?
A: Although the specific definition of informed consent may vary from state to state, it means essentially that a physician (or other medical provider) must tell a patient of all the potential benefits, risks, and alternatives involved in any surgical procedure, medical procedure, or other course of treatment, and must obtain the patient’s written consent to proceed.

Q: Do I have a case against a doctor who prescribed me a drug for treatment, but failed to tell me it was part of an experimental program?
A: Your physician had a duty to tell you that the drug was part of an experimental program, and you had the right to refuse to participate in it. You may have grounds for an action against your doctor based on his/her failure to obtain your “informed consent” relative to this treatment.

Q: If the consent form I signed prior to a procedure is considered valid, can I recover any damages in a malpractice action against my doctor?
A: Yes, you still may be able to recover damages. A consent form does not release from liability a physician who was negligent in performing a medical procedure. If you can establish that your doctor deviated from the applicable standard of care in performing the procedure, and you were injured as a result, you may still recover against him/her. You may also have a claim that the procedure the physician performed went beyond the consent you gave, in which case the doctor might even be liable for battery.

Whether you live in New York, Washington DC, or anywhere and you have more questions about your rights and what its owed you or to determine if you have a valid medical malpractice case, please contact a responsible lawyer.

Judges increasingly don’t relate to the average citizen. Rinaldo Del Gallo III in The Times Union points out:

Judges are losing the ability to relate to average people. Their salaries are more than twice as much as the median household income in New York. They make so much money, they do not understand what a $250 speeding ticket coupled with surcharges can do to a family’s finances, how losing a third of one’s after-tax income in child support can lead to poverty, or what it means to lose a primary wage earner because of a slip-and-fall injury, medical malpractice or driver’s negligence.

This is a great explanation of why you need a responsible lawyer to make your medical malpractice case logical and compelling.