By the time Mr. Golden was accurately diagnosed, the cancer had spread and Mr. Golden required surgery to remove his bladder, prostate and pieces of his urethra. Even with this radical surgery, Mr. Golden’s cancer was so advanced that it was incurable and he ultimately died in January, 2008 at the age of 60. Mrs. Golden sued Dr. Smolko, Wayne Memorial Hospital and the pathologist who looked at the bladder biopsy in June, 2003. The hospital and pathologist reached a confidential settlement with Mrs. Golden prior to trial, so the case went to the jury solely against Dr. Smolko. The jury awarded $1.88 Million to Mrs. Golden. Dr. Smolko has filed an appeal.

If Mr. Jones care had been handled appropriately, his test results would have been read by the E.R. doctor caring for him as soon as they were done and then the tests would have been sent to the radiology department for an “official” read by a radiologist at some later point. Instead, Mr. Jones’ test results were not reviewed by either Dr. Powell (who had left the hospital) or Dr. Skobeloff (who was new to the E.R) and were simply sent on to radiology where the were not reviewed until the morning, by which time Mr. Jones had died. The tests showed that Mr. Jones had a dissecting aortic aneurysm (blood filling in between the layers of the heart wall and the sack that surrounds the heart) that prevented the heart from pumping properly. If the tests had been reviewed, Mr. Jones would have been transferred to another hospital for an operation that may have been able to fix his problem.

Mrs. Jones, who herself was recovering at a different hospital when Mr. Jones was taken to St. Joseph’s, sued St. Josephs and both Dr. Powell and Dr. Skobeloff for the negligent care of her husband. The hospital and doctors argued to the jury that Mr. Jones had a complicated medical history, including high blood pressure and “chronic” failures to properly take his blood pressure medication. They also argued that even if they had learned that Mr. Jones suffered from a dissecting aortic aneurysm, they wouldn’t have had enough time to transfer him to another hospital for surgery. The jury apparently rejected these arguments and concluded that Mr. and Mrs. Jones deserved the opportunity for another hospital to try to save Mr. Jones’ life. The jury found Dr. Powell 48% responsible, Dr. Skobeloff 36% responsible and St. Joseph’s 16% responsible.

This case demonstrates why it is important to have a qualified lawyer who understands medicine review the medical records of a loved-one who dies unexpectedly while under medical care.

Plaintiff's wife died less than 24 hours after being sent home from the hospital after limited tests were run in response to her complaints. Plaintiff's son was delivered by an emergency caesarian section not long after his mother collapsed from bleeding caused by the separation of the placenta from the uterus wall. Unfortunately, the ruptrue of the placenta caused deprivation of oxygen to the newborn, who suffered from seizures and was significantly brain damaged and survived after birth for a few days only because he was on life support systems. When the life support was removed, Plaintiff's son died.

Dr. Greene argued that she ordered appropriate testing and that the Plaintiff's wife had normal findings that suggested it was reasonable to discharge her to home, including stable fetal monitoring results and no evidence that amniotic fluid was leaking or that she was bleeding vaginally. Dr. Greene argued that the placenta had ruptured suddenly just before the Plaintiff's wife collapsed, but an expert for Plaintiff testified that findings during the caesarian section were more consistent with a tear in the placenta occuring a day before she collapsed.

The jury deliberated only 2 days before awarding $8.8 Million to Plaintiff, including $2 Million for the loss of his wife and $5 Million for the loss of his son.

The medical records showed that the nurse on duty noted that Mr. Rettger had a dilated pupil, which is a warning of impending brain rupture, and then called the neurosurgeon in charge of Mr. Rettger's care. The testimony of the nurse and the neurosurgeon differed as to what occurred during the telephone call, with the nurse testifying that she told the doctor about the dilation and the doctor testifying that he was only told that Mr. Rettger's other eye was sluggish. The nurse aruged that she followed the doctor's instructions and the doctor argued that he would have come to the hospital immediately if the nurse had told him about the dilated pupil.

Mr. Rettger's attorneys argued that the nurse erred in not reporting the condition to her supervisors when the doctor did not do anything in response to her call and that the hospital's policy regarding the chain of command for nurses tending to neurosurgical patients was flawed. In addition, Mr. Rettger's attorneys presented evidence that if Mr. Rettger had survived, he would have earned between $4-$15 million in his lifetime. The jury concluded that they believed the hospital's "policies, culture and lack of competent supervision resulted in the death of Michael Rettger," but awarded no survival damages to his brothers because "no amount amoung of damages" would adequately punish the hospital. Although the jury awarded $2.5 million for wrongful death damages, Mr. Rettger's attorneys are appealing the jury's decision as against the weight of the evidence and the legal instructions it was given prior to deliberation.

The outcome of this case is an example of the complicated issues that arise in medical negligence cases and that require the counsel of an experienced medical malpractice attorney.

As a result of the bowel being cut, the contents of the bowel leaked into the stomach, which caused infections, organ scarring and blockages of the intestines. Mrs. Bodell now requires surgery on a regular basis to keep her condition manageable. The jury awarded Mrs. Bodell $6 Million for her pain and suffering and her husband $500,00 for his "loss of consortium" claim (his loss of Mrs. Bodell's companionship and marital services related to her injuries).

Surgical mishaps are a common source of medical malpractice cases. Although cutting the bowel or another organ during surgery is frequently a recognized complication of surgery, when detecting such a complication is delayed, it may be medical negligence.

Although Mrs. Johnson survived the incident, she suffered brain damage that has resulted in memory loss, speech problems, seizures and personality changes. In addition to malpractice claims, Mrs. Johnson has also filed a claim for the Hospital's violation of the Emergency Medical and Active Labor Act ("EMTALA"), alleging that she was not provided the same medical screening examination as other patients with similar medical conditions and/or was not appropriately stabilized.

You can read more about this case at: http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20081007/NEWS01/810070365 or http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,433830,00.html

Although I am not a Delaware lawyer, this case was filed in Federal Court in Delaware where I am handling it with the assistance of a Delaware attorney. I am licensed to handle cases in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but I occasionally will become involved in particularly interesting cases in other states if I am able to obtain permission to handle the case from the court in which the case is to be filed.

In the California case, which settled in April, 2008, then 20 month old Mackayla Jespersen was rushed to the emergency room after being found floating facedown in her family's pool in November, 2003. Paramedics initially provided treatment to Mackayla at her home and then transported her to the emergency room of the Anaheim Memorial Medical Center where doctors pronounced her dead 39 minutes after arrival. Following the determination that Mackayla was dead, the doctors removed a breathing tube and left her unattended for over an hour despite the fact that Mackayla's parents and grandmother advised doctors and nurses that they saw her breathing.

Just over an hour after Mackayla was left for dead, a police officer who was photographing the body observed her chest moving and called for help. Mackayla's family argued in their lawsuit against the hospital and treating doctors that Mackalya should have been warmed upon arrival at the emergency room so that her vital signs could be properly monitored. The family further argued that if Mackayla had not been left unattended for over an hour, she would have recovered from the drowning event or suffered significantly less brain damage. The hospital and treating doctors argued that it was not the absence of treatment for the hour she was wrongfully declared dead, but rather the 15 minutes under water, that caused her brain injury.

Mackayla, who is now 6 years old, has regained most of her brain functioning and appears about to learn to walk, but she continues to suffer from spastic movements and requires medical care from her injuries. The settlement amount is confidential.

At trial, the cardiologists did not present any expert testimony from other physicians that their use of Sotalol in Mrs. Koch while she was on dialysis was acceptable medical practice. Mrs. Koch's family (her husband and now grown children, who were 17 and 21 at the time of her death) presented the testimony of 2 medical experts (a cardiologist and a nephrologist, or kidney specialist) that the use of Sotalol was unacceptable in her case. The defendant cardiolgoists did present expert testimony that Sotalol was not the cause of Mrs. Koch's death, instead attempting to blame it on a variety of other medical conditions from which Mrs. Koch suffered or had suffered previously (but admitting at the same time that Sotalol was a "possible" cause of her death). The medical experts testifying on behalf of the Koch family testified that they could exclude all other causes of death because she was being successfully treated for these conditions, none of which would cause sudden death. Further, the cardiology expert who testified for the Kochs explained to the jury that Mrs. Koch had evidence of a deadly heart rhythm known as Toursades de Pointes (or "turning of the screw") on the heart monitor strips taken by the paramedics just prior to her death. He explained that this arrhythmia occurs in patients having an adverse reaction to Sotalol.

After 5 1/2 days of trial, the jury deliberated for 2 1/2 hours before returning a verdict of $1.6 Million for Mrs. Koch's husband and 2 children.

Because the baby's head was squeezed so many times during the long delivery by the frequent contractions, the now-10 year old suffered brain damage that resulted in permanent injuries. She has been diagnosed as spastic guadriplegic, which means she has only limited use of her arms and legs. She is limited to walking short distances and only with the use of a walker, she can ee but because the part of her brain that processes what she sees was damaged, she can't interpret what she is seeing, she is mildly retarded and she has difficulty utilizing her hands.

After hearing all the testimony, the jury in this Ohio case awarded almost $8M for future medical care, over $7M for the inability to perform normal activities, and $3M for pain and suffering. Grow v. Yang, Hamilton County, Ohio.

More disturbing, the jury heard testimony that a nurse on duty at the time the appendix removal surgery was being planned and performed warned the OB/GYN that the monitoring strips showed a problem with the baby. Further, the nurse felt so strongly that the baby was in danger that when the doctor refused to listen to her concerns, she went to to her charge nurse and then to the hospital's nursing supervisor seeking to have an emergency Cesarean section performed on Bonnie to save the baby. Instead of listening to the nurse, the OB/GYN and the general surgeon removed the appendix, only to find that it was normal, but Bonnie's abdomen was filled with 3.5 liters of blood, which is half the amount of blood an average woman has in her entire body.

Ultimately, a c-section was performed to deliver Brandon more than one and a half hours after the appendix surgery began. At birth, Brandon had no muscle tone and required extensive medical intervention to live, including a four month hospitalization in the neonatal intensive care unit. An expert medical witness testified to the jury that if Brnadon had been delivered even half an hour sooner, he would have been medically normal. The OB/GYN continues to assert that his care was appropriate and that Bonnie's complication was "incredibly rare" and is seeking a new trial and possibly an appeal.

(1) performing surgery on the wrong body part;
(2) performing surgery on the wrong patient;
(3) performing the wrong surgery on a patient;
(4) sending a newborn infant home with the wrong family;
(5) unintentionally leaving a foreign object in the body;
(6) medication error that results in serious injury or death;
(7) using wrong artificial donor for insemination;
(8) causing injury by giving patient the wrong blood type; and
(9) air-embolism injury.

Interestingly, the "no pay" rule adopted by the Delaware Healthcare Association applies only to hospitals, which means that patients may still see a bill from their doctor for these types of errors. It is unclear how many errors occur in Delaware's hospitals because Delaware (unlike many states, including Pennsylvania) does not require hospitals to report medical errors to the public. However, one study, performed by the Institute for Medicine in 1999, reported that nationwide, between 44,000 and 98,000 patients die in hospitals each year because of preventable medical errors.

The woman received a screening mamogram in June 2003 from a Fox Chase mobile mammography unit that was read as showing a dilated duct unchanged from a 2001 mammogram. The jury heard testimony that the woman's 2001 mammogram did not show a dilated duct, which meant that the 2003 mammogram should have been reported as showing a suspicious change that required further evaluation. The woman then had a 2004 mammogram at the Albert Einstein Medical Center and the physician who read that report noted several small nodular densities that were stable when compared to prior mammograms. Again, the jury heard evidence that the doctor mis-read the mammogram because the woman's prior mammograms had not reported nodular densities. The woman's lawyers argued that doctors again missed a chance to instruct the woman to obtain follow-up medical care that would have diagnosed the cancer. Ultimately, the woman was found to have Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in the location where the 2003 mammogram showed a dilated duct.

Prior to trial, the Albert Einstein Medical Center and the doctor who read the 2004 mammogram settled with the woman for a confidential amount of money. Fox Chase and its physician had refused offers to settle along with Albert Einstein for a total of $2 Million (which was the maximum amount available under the doctors' insurance coverage), offering only $125,000. The woman's lawyer had warned Fox Chase that if a jury ultimately awarded more than $2 Million, the woman would be eligible to pursue bad faith claims for failing to settle.

This case demonstrates that any woman diagnosed with breast cancer even though she has been receiving regular screening mammograms should have the films and reports reviewed by a competent medical malpractice attorney who can have medical experts determine if suspicious findings were actually present on the studies, but not identified.

In the recently-published study, almost 87,000 patients who suffered from cardiac arrest were studied at 507 hospitals during 7 years. Typically, when a patient's heart stops, a team of medical professionals is called urgently to the patient's bedside to begin rendering care from a "crash cart" that contains equipment such as a defibrillator and various drugs. As a practical matter, patients who suffer from a cardiac arrest are usually very sick and even at the best of times the rate of survival is fairly low (among the studied patients, approximately 20% of those who suffered a cardiac arrest during the day shift survived to the point of hospital discharge), but something about the night shift seems to make the chances of survival even worse. In the study, only 15% of those patients who suffered a cardiac arrest during the 11 p.m. - 7 a.m. shift survived long enough to be discharged from the hospital.

This study would suggest that the level of patient care received a night is subpar - either because the night shift workers are too tired to react as efficiently as the day shift workers or because there is less staff during the night hours such that they can't check patients as often and react to problems as quickly or because the experience and skill level of night shift workers is lower than that of day shift workers. Whatever the explanation, it is reasonable to conclude that differences in care are not limited to cardiac arrest situations.

Following the 9:45 a.m. note, the patient's morphine pump was stopped and she was transferred to the intensive care unit, where she died two and a half days later. Attorneys for the woman's family argued that the nurses violated the standard of care by not calling for a doctor when the patient's blood pressure dropped below 100. Although attorneys for the hospital disputed that the nurses' care was negligent, a nursing supervisor employed by the hospital testified that a doctor should have been called when the patient's blood pressure dropped below 100.

In addition to the allegations that the nurses were negligent for failing to call for a doctor, the plaintiff's attorneys argued that the patient was over-medicated with morphine. Evidence presented at trial showed that people with compromised livers, which this patient had because of a chronic alcoholism condition, process morphine 50% slower than patients with a healthy liver. Attorneys for the hospital essentially argued that the patient was caused by her alcoholism and related medical problems such as liver disease and high blood pressure.

A jury voted 10-2 to award the patient's family $1.2 million dollars, which was $900,000 more than the highest offer the hospital had made to settle the case prior to trial. The hospital has stated it will appeal the verdict.

duPont and Dr. Norwood are asking the Court to punish the Faustinos' attorney for filing the lawsuit, arguing that she knew it was frivolous because the statute of limitations had clearly expired before it was filed. In support of their argument, duPont and Dr. Norwood allege that the Faustinos knew immediately after Ira's death that he died from fluid in the lungs, which is a common complication of the surgery he had. Further, duPont and Dr. Norwood argue that the Faustinos were told that Ira died from "complications of surgery," which they assert demonstrates there was no overt act of fraudulent concealment as required by Pennsylvania law to extend the statute of limitations. The Faustinos, on the other hand, argue that duPont and Dr. Norwood's failure to advise them that an unconventional cooling method was used on Ira during surgery was an overt act of fraudulent concealment.

This case demonstrates that complex issues, both legal and medical, that can arise in medical malpractice cases. The assistance of an experienced attorney who is willing to explore all available legal theories is crucial to success in this complicated area of the law.