Chicago Medical Malpractice Attorney Blog

In a Cook County medical malpractice lawsuit, a patient's surviving family members filed a medical negligence lawsuit claiming that the doctor had misdiagnosed the patient's disease and elected not to properly treat it. However, a jury found in favor of the defendant doctor after determining that the doctor's actions did not directly cause the patient's death in The Estate of D.W., deceased, et al. v. Dr. Lee, Midwest Surgery, S.C., 11 L 79.

The decedent first met the defendant doctor after being admitted to Sherman Hospital with complaints of chest and abdominal pain in April 2003. Dr. Lee, a general surgeon, was brought in on consult after a CT scan did not return any clear or obvious cause for the patient's pain; the CT scan only showed the presence of free air.

After reviewing the patient's medical history, the doctors concluded that the pain was likely caused by a perforated duodenal ulcer located near the patient's small intestine. Dr. Lee performed an emergency surgery to repair the perforated ulcer. A little over three weeks later, the patient was discharged from Sherman Hospital with orders to follow up with Dr. Lee in four days.

Everything seemed to be going well, until December 2003 when the patient returned to Sherman Hospital, this time with a diagnosis of cholecystitis and cholelithiasis, i.e. a bladder infection and gallstones. Once again, Dr. Lee was called as a consultant and ended up performing the surgery to remove the patient's gallbladder. He was then discharged just four days after presenting to the hospital and was again instructed to follow up with Dr. Lee.

Continue reading "Jury Finds for Doctor in Case Alleging Improper Treatment of Peptic Ulcer Disease" »

A Cook County jury returned a $5.1 million verdict in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against a city and its paramedics. The case had initially been dismissed on the basis that the city was immune from such claims. However, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed that ruling and held that the city and its paramedics could be tried under the Illinois Emergency Medical Services Act.

The Illinois wrongful death lawsuit involved a 16 year-old Park Ridge teen whose parents had called 911 after he was found unconscious during the early morning hours. However, by the time the paramedics arrived, the teen was conscious and breathing. While there was later some debate as to whether or not the family denied the need for further services at that time, the end result was that the paramedics left without doing a full assessment of the teen's condition. Several hours later, his condition further deteriorated and another 911 call was made. However, this time the paramedics did not arrive in time and the teen ended up dying of a drug overdose.

As a result of the teen's death, the family filed a lawsuit against the City of Park Ridge in which it alleged that its paramedics acted willfully and wantonly by choosing to not correctly assess the extent of the teen's medical condition. The family maintained that at the time of the first 911 call that the teen should have been transported to a nearby hospital for further treatment.

The courts dismissed the claim after finding that the City of Park Ridge was immune under the Illinois Tort Immunity Act. The Immunity Act bars any liability against a local public entity for failure to evaluate, diagnose or prescribe treatment for an illness or physical condition. Therefore, the City of Park Ridge could not be held responsible for any of its employee's failure to properly diagnose and treat patients.

The teen's family appealed this decision to the Illinois Appellate Court, where it was affirmed. However, when it arrived before the Illinois Supreme Court, the decision was reversed on the finding that the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Act was the controlling law and not the Tort Immunity Act. The case was then remanded to the trial court for further handling.

Continue reading "$5.1 Million Cook County Verdict for Death of Teen - Paramedics at Fault" »

Doctors are relying more and more on narcotic medications to treat patients' increased complaints of chronic pain. However, while this might mean that more patients' pain is being treated in the short-term, it has some potentially harmful long-term consequences. The longer patients remain on opiate medications, the less effective they are at treating pain, which sometimes results in the dosage increasing to potentially dangerous levels.

A recent medical malpractice lawsuit involved claims that the defendant physician's negligence in prescribing a pain patch caused a patient's death. The Grundy County lawsuit alleged that Dr. Timothy Sanders, an anesthesiologist, contributed to the decedent's death by extending the use of use of her Fentanyl patch. The anesthesiologist had used the Fentanyl patch to treat the patient's pain following a short, one-hour surgery to treat her broken hip. However, within nine hours of the surgery the patient had died.

While the patient's death was ultimately attributed to her Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), an autopsy report revealed that Fentanyl intoxication significantly contributed to her death. The 71 year-old decedent had been on a Fentanyl Duragic Patch for several years prior to her death as a means of treating chronic pain caused by compression fractures in her back. Fentanyl is an opiate drug and is often not prescribed for patients with COPD because of its potential to cause respiratory problems.

Based on the autopsy report, the decedent's surviving family members brought a http://www.robertkreisman.com/lawyer-attorney-1344040.html
against the defendant anesthesiologist in which they alleged that he should not have kept the Fentanyl patch on for as long as he did. Instead, the family contended it should have been removed following the surgery, arguing that its continued use was contraindicated. Furthermore, the decedent's family was critical of the anesthesiologist prescribing the Fentanyl patch in conjunction with her warming blanket on the basis that the patch should not have been exposed to a heat source.

Continue reading "Jury Finds for Doctor in Fentanyl Death Case" »

As surgical techniques become more advanced, more Americans are undergoing minor surgical procedures. And while many times these surgical procedures result in seemingly miraculous results, with the prior symptoms disappearing completely, some may also result in unanticipated side effects. A recent Cook County lawsuit serves as an example of some of the negative potential outcomes that can result from surgical negligence.

The Cook County lawsuit was filed against Gottlieb Memorial Hospital following a 2007 vaginal prolapse reconstruction surgery performed at its hospital. The surgeon, Dr. Robert Lai of Midwest Urology Associates, Ltd., was also named in the medical malpractice lawsuit. The lawsuit alleged that the negligent post-operative care the plaintiff received resulted in permanent nerve damage.

The 50-some year-old plaintiff had presented to Dr. Lai for a reconstruction surgery that was meant to correct her incontinence, constipation, and vaginal prolapse. The surgery was performed and seemed to have been a success. However, as the plaintiff prepared for her discharge from the hospital the day after the surgery, she began to experience weakness, pain, and tingling in her leg and buttock.

Continue reading "$1.5 Million Jury Verdict for Postop Nerve Damage in Vaginal Prolapse Reconstruction Surgery" »

A Lake County jury entered a verdict in favor of a woman who was sustained a head injury after falling from a surgical table. While the original medical malpractice lawsuit was filed against both the hospital where the fall occurred and the anesthesiologist who administered an epidural prior to the fall, the $790,860 verdict was only entered against the defendant hospital.

The 59 year-old plaintiff presented to Victory Memorial Hospital, now known as Vista Medical Center East, for treatment of a lower back injury. The plaintiff had injured herself after falling in a parking lot, sustaining not only the back injury, but a mild concussion as well. To help improve her pain, the plaintiff was given an epidural by Dr. Eliza Diaconescu, a pain management specialist.

According to testimony provided at the Lake County medical malpractice trial, the plaintiff remained semi-conscious after Dr. Diaconescu gave her an epidural. Dr. Diaconescu then walked away from the surgical table in order to dictate her treatment into the operative notes. An operating room nurse stayed with the plaintiff while she awaited her transfer to the recovery room. It was at this time that the plaintiff fell off the operating table, cutting her head and sustaining yet another concussion. The plaintiff filed a lawsuit against Dr. Diaconescu and Victory Memorial Hospital for their negligence in causing her injury.

Continue reading "$790,000 Award For Patient Who Fell From Surgical Table After Epidural" »

In a Cook County medical malpractice lawsuit, the Illinois Appellate Court recently ruled that a hospital could not be held liable for the potential negligence of one of its independent contractors in Lamb-Rosenfeldt v. Burke Medical Group, 2012 IL App (1st), 101558. The case was brought by the decedent's daughter, who contended that the defendant doctor contributed to the her mother's death by failing to timely diagnose her lung cancer.

Lee Lamb began seeing Dr. Kathryn Burke in November 2004. However, Lamb had met Dr. Burke on several previous occasions when Dr. Burke visited the hair salon where Lamb worked. And while Lamb did have her own physician at the time, she would still ask Dr. Burke questions about her medical treatment. It was during the course of those conversations that Dr. Burke became aware of Lamb's medical history, including her diagnosis of lung cancer in 1996. So when Lamb became dissatisfied with her current primary care physician in 2004, Dr. Burke was the natural choice for a replacement.

When Dr. Burke began treating Lamb in 2004, Lamb was not actively being treated for her lung cancer. However, according to the medical malpractice complaint, Dr. Burke ignored all the warning signs that Lamb's cancer was recurring: weight loss, frequent coughing, swallowing difficulty, fatigue, and aspiration of food. Lamb was ultimately diagnosed with a recurrence of her lung cancer in February 2006; she died just eight months later in October 2006. The complaint alleged that if Dr. Burke had recognized the signs and symptoms of her lung cancer at an earlier date that Lamb could have survived.

Continue reading "Hospital Not Liable on Theory of Apparent Agency - Rosenfeldt v. Burke Medical Group" »

In TV and movie trial dramas, we are always shown a jury hotly debating over the case facts, with one or two jurors holding out against the rest of the jury. However, in Illinois, in order for a jury verdict to stand it needs to be unanimous. This means that if even one of the jurors cannot agree with the rest of the jury, then the judge finds the jury to be deadlocked and declares a mistrial.

This occurred in the Illinois wrongful death lawsuit of Estate of Steven Prehn, deceased v. Dr. Sandeep Amin, University Anesthesiologists S.C., 07 L 1115. After the jury debated for over ten hours over the course of two days it was still unable to reach an unanimous decision. While nine jurors were in favor of the plaintiff, the remaining three jurors were in favor of the defendant doctor.

Prehn involved the death of a 46 year-old father of three from a pain medication overdose. Steven Prehn had visited Dr. Amin, a pain management specialists, at his Rush Pain Center facility with complaints of chronic pain. Dr. Amin prescribed Methadone, an opiate or narcotic medication typically prescribed to treat moderate to severe pain. Twenty-six hours after the office visit, Prehn was found dead at his home from a Methadone overdose.

Continue reading "$500,000 Settlement After Jury Deadlock Over Patient's Death From Pain Medication Overdose - Estate of Prehn v. Dr. Amin" »

As patients, we entrust our health and well-being to our physicians and rely on their expertise to make us well. Perhaps this trust is nowhere more obvious than in Intensive Care Units (ICU), where most patients' lives are hanging in the balance.

The wrongful death lawsuit of Estate of Tyrone Holliday v. Dr. Stephanie Panush, et al., 06 L 12318, dealt with an ICU patient who died while under the care of various ICU medical staff. Tyrone Holliday was admitted to the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center's Neuro ICU unit after suffered a stroke in November 2005. The stroke had affected Mr. Holliday's breathing to the point that he needed to have a tracheostomy tube placed.

The tracheostomy tube would control Mr. Holliday's breathing; without the tube he was unable to breath on his own. According to the Illinois wrongful death lawsuit filed by Mr. Holliday's estate, he died as a result of negligent treatment and care related to his tracheostomy tube. The allegations arose after Mr. Holliday's tracheostomy tube became dislodged just 24 hours after it was placed. Mr. Holliday suffered respiratory arrest and died shortly thereafter.

Continue reading "Jury Holds for Doctor When Patient Dies After Trach Tube Dislodged - Estate of Holliday v. Dr. Panush" »

Jury instructions are invaluable in helping jurors make decisions that are in accordance with the law. It is through jury instructions that jurors are able to understand what questions they need to answer and how. Yet when a jury is given incorrect jury instructions it can bias its opinion and result in an unfair outcome.

In the medical malpractice lawsuit of Karen Graham, etc. v. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, 2012 IL App (1st) 102609, an Illinois appellate court found that the Cook County jury was given an incorrect jury instruction. The court also found that the improper jury instruction might have influenced the jury's verdict. As a result, a new medical malpractice trial was ordered, this time with only the correct jury instructions being delivered to the jury.

The case facts in Graham involve the suicide of a 49 year-old woman who had been admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital after an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Upon admission to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Marilee Graham was heard expressing regret that she had not died. Another note in her chart stated that she was "falling apart mentally and emotionally" and was still in "severe emotional pain."

Continue reading "Illinois Appellate Court Agrees With Trial Judge that No Contributory Negligence Jury Instruction in Suicide Case - Graham, etc. v. Northwestern Memorial Hospital" »

Cancer misdiagnosis lawsuits make up a fair share of medical malpractice lawsuits. However, most of those misdiagnosis lawsuits deal with a delay in diagnosis that results in a fatal outcome for the plaintiff. Whereas in Pamela Chouinard v. Dr. Janis Atkinson, North Shore Pathology Consultants S.C., 08 L 9295, the misdiagnosis claim centered on a false positive cancer diagnosis which led to an unnecessary surgery.

The Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit was brought by Pamela Chouinard following the removal of her thyroid gland. While Chouinard had initially been told the surgery was necessary because she had thyroid cancer, a biopsy taken after the surgery showed her thyroid to be benign and cancer free. Chouinard then sued Dr. Atkinson for misdiagnosing her alleged cancer and causing her to undergo thyroid surgery.

The case begins in July 2006 when 62 year-old Chouinard is found to have an enlarged thyroid gland. In order to determine the cause, she underwent a fine needle aspiration of her thyroid. The results showed multiple nodules on Chouinard's thyroid, including a cold nodule, which is a common sign of thyroid cancer. Based on the thyroid aspiration results, the reviewing pathologist, Dr. Atkinson, entered a positive finding of malignant cancer of the papillary thyroid.

Continue reading "Jury Finds for Doctor in Claim of Cancer Misdiagnosis - Chouinard v. Atkinson" »

A Chicago jury examined the question of what duty of care does a surgeon owe his patients following a surgery in the medical malpractice lawsuit of Marvin Rieker v. Libby Kristal, M.D., 08 L 90 (LaSalle County). For example, is the surgeon required to keep an eye on his patient's care only when he/she is in the hospital, or is he required to be the follow up person for any questions related to the surgery even after the patient has gone home?

The case in question involved a cataract eye surgery that ophthalmologist Dr. Libby Kristal performed on Marvin Rieker. Almost from the start, the 79 year-old Rieker began to experience problems. Following the cataract surgery, Rieker began to complain of pain and redness in his eye. Dr. Kristal attributed Rieker's complaints to the regular side effects of cataract surgery and told Rieker that his eye would take some time to heal.

However, the following day Rieker was still complaining of severe pain and redness that had not subsided. And while Dr. Kristal was out of town, she referred Rieker to an optometrist for evaluation. That optometrist recommended that Rieker be referred to a retinal surgeon within a few days and reported his findings to Dr. Kristal. Dr. Kristal authorized an increase in Rieker's medications and assured Rieker that she would call him the next morning to follow up.

However, Dr. Kristal did not actually call Rieker until mid-afternoon and did not even see him until several hours after that. By then it was too late for Rieker; he had permanently lost his vision in the operated eye. In addition, the extent of damage required that he later have his entire eye removed and replaced with a prosthetic eye. Rieker filed a medical malpractice focusing on Dr. Kristal's alleged surgical error.

Continue reading "Cataract Surgery Gone Bad Results in Loss of Eye, $684,000 Verdict for Patient - Rieker v. Kristal" »

In Illinois, the statute of limitations governing civil cases, e.g. medical malpractice, product liability, and personal injury cases, is typically two years. However, the Illinois Appellate Court recently revisited exactly when that two-year statute begins in its analysis of the "discovery rule" as it relates to Mitsias v. I-Flow, 2011 Ill.App. (1st) 101126 (Sept. 23, 2011).

The discovery rule refers to the general rule that the statute begins when a plaintiff knew or should have know about the cause for his injury. The injury in question in Mitsias deals with both a medical malpractice claim and a later product liability lawsuit involving the plaintiff's shoulder surgery. In 2001, Mitsias underwent a shoulder surgery during which a "pain pump" was implanted. However, Mitsias later developed glenohumeral chondrolysis, or destruction of cartilage in her shoulder and joint.

In 2003, Mitsias filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the surgeon who implanted the pain pump. However, during the course of the medical malpractice proceedings, Mitsias discovered that the source of her shoulder injury might not be a simple case of medical malpractice, but also have a product liability component. Consequently, Mitsias filed a second complaint against the manufacturers of the pain pump alleging that its defects caused her shoulder injury.

Continue reading "Illinois Appellate Court Clarifies Discovery Rule - Mitsias v. I-Flow" »

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.

Continue reading "Jury Finds for Doctor in Colon Perforation in Bypass Surgery Death - Estate of Dornhecker v. Dr. Applebaum" »

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.

Continue reading "Jury Finds for Nurse in Patient's Claim of Inadequate Monitoring, Leading to Central Spinal Cord Syndrome - Murray v. Price-Gordon" »

The patient-physician relationship is built on trust - the patient trusts that his doctor is acting within the standard of care and the physician trusts that the patient is following his orders. In this Illinois medical malpractice case, both parties argued that the other violated this mutual trust. The plaintiff argued that the defendant doctor acted negligently, while the doctor argued that the plaintiff failed to follow his medical advice.

The current case arose after the 19 year-old plaintiff developed lithium toxicity. The defendant psychiatrist, Dr. John Huh, had prescribed the plaintiff lithium for her bipolar disorder. This in itself was not unusual. Lithium is often prescribed to treat patients with bipolar disorder due to its ability to reduce the frequency and severity of bipolar depression.

However, lithium carries with it some fairly serious side effects, including muscle weakness, sudden hair loss, poor concentration, drowsiness, vomiting, and diarrhea. In order to prevent these serious side effects, physicians regularly monitor the levels of lithium in a patient's blood stream, adjusting the dosage as necessary. However, in the this case, Dr. Huh failed to obtain regular blood draws, thereby missing the warning signs that the plaintiff was developing lithium toxicity.

Continue reading "Jury Awards $125,000 for Toxic Dose of Lithium" »