Medical Malpractice:woman awarded $3.5 Million for paraplegia after graft surgery.

53 year old Victoria Little, of Harford County, MD, walked into the hospital to have  surgery wearing four inch heel, but when the surgery was over, she was left a paraplegic unable to walk. Ms. Little underwent a grafting procedure in 2007 for blocked arteries.

Ms. Little filed suit in 2008 claiming that Dr. Rodger Schneider and Dr. Mark Gonze, partners and surgeons of Vascular Surgery Associates, used an improper grafting technique. Plaintiff’s counsel, two good friends of ours, Jim Cardea and Scott Kurlander,  argued that the procedure led to blood loss and damage to Ms. Little’s spinal cord, which left her a paraplegic.

The Baltimore Sun reported that after hearing all arguments and nine hours of deliberation, the jury awarded Ms. Little $1.3 million for non-economic damages, $2 million for future medical costs and over $200,00 for prior medical bills.

Attorney for the defendants, E. Phillip Franke, III, claimed that Ms. Little  simply had a poor outcome and that her injuries wee not the result of malpractice. The defense is currently reviewing the case for appeal. In light of Maryland’s cap on non-economic damages (e.g. pain and suffering) we expect that in the interim that the award will be reduced.

Harford County has traditionally been viewed as a conservative jurisdiction and not plaintiff-friendly. Well, the good people of Harford County got it right! Congratulations, Scott and Jim!

Computer May Be Better Than Your Doctor in Providing Information for Obtaining Your Informed Consent

When most people think about medical malpractice, they think about a doctor making a mistake during surgery, or failing to order a necessary test, or making the wrong diagnosis. In other words, a mistake in the actual rendering of medical care. However, a doctor can also be negligent in his or her communications with a patient even before the doctor undertakes the treatment at issue.

Under the law, a doctor is required to explain to the patient the risks, benefits and alternatives of treatment so that the patient can make an informed decision about whether to proceed with treatment. This is called “informed consent” and is a critical step in the process of getting competent medical care.  

While some doctors and hospitals have generic consent forms that you sign before surgery, the actual informed consent process is typically handled by the doctor, usually in the doctor’s office. At this time, the doctor is required to explain the treatment, what it entails, the risks involved (i.e., death, infection, etc.), and whether there are any less  invasive alternatives or other available options for care. If the doctor fails to thoroughly explain these issues, then he or she can be held liable if the patient did not understand the full ramifications of the procedure and suffered injury as a result.

One of the difficulties of informed consent is that it is usually done verbally, and we all know the difficulty of trying to remember all the details when someone is explaining something to us, whether it’s directions to a local store, or how to program a new cell phone. It can be especially difficult in the context of a doctor’s office when the patient is already under stress and is being bombarded with complicated medical terminology. It is not surprising that many patients have little or no recall of the actual risks of treatment that doctors routinely say they explain to their patients.

One method that is currently being explored to improve this process is the use of computer programs to help educate patients. In a new study, researchers at the University of Melbourne and Austin Hospital in Australia tested a computer program in forty patients scheduled to undergo surgery to remove the prostate gland.

The computer program included slides with animations detailing the procedure, its potential complications and the post-surgery recovery. Each slide contained questions for the patient to answer, and he could move on to the next slide only after he gave the correct responses.

Patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group received standard informed consent verbally from their doctor. The second group got to use the computer. The study found that the patients in the computer group scored much higher on test questions about the procedure – 78% correct answers versus 57% in the standard group. Why the difference?

Having patients answer questions helps turn the process into an “education and knowledge tool,” according to Dr. Nathan Lawrentschuk, one of the researchers on the study, which appears in the urology journal BJU International.  It may also allow doctors and nurses to “hone in on areas not understood, rather than assuming our patients understand what we say,” Lawrentschuk told Reuters Health in an email.

We look forward to further advances in this technology so that patients can make informed decisions about their medical treatment. Let us know if you have ever given ‘informed consent’ after being advised of the risks and alternatives by a computer.  We would appreciate you sharing with us how, if at all, that process improved your understanding of the surgery you were about to undergo.

Patient finds source of pain: forgotten surgical tool!!!

You just can’t make this stuff up.  Apparently some surgeon and his team in Prague have a problem with counting surgical instruments.  Patient finds source of pain: forgotten surgical tool | News Bizarre | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.

PRAGUE — It took five long months for a Czech woman to discover the reason for her pain: Doctors had left a foot-long medical tool inside her abdomen.

This month, doctors at a clinic in the southeastern town of Ivancice discovered their colleagues had forgotten to remove a spatula-like surgical instrument from the woman following gynecological surgery in September.

Wonder if they have tort reform in Czechoslovakia?