New York patients rely on doctors and medical professionals to accurately diagnose symptoms and help prevent future health complications. Doctors don’t always catch everything and something these oversights can have enormous, even fatal consequences. Failure to diagnose breast cancer or lung cancer can allow the disease to go untreated and reach a point where treatment is not a possibility.
A patient in Arizona suffered the deadly repercussions of a failure to diagnose symptoms but her family recently recovered a $5.9 million verdict against the hospital. The treating physician missed a bowel perforation and the woman later died.
The hospital tried to argue that the doctor was not an employee but the jury still found fault on the part of the hospital. The female patient was 32-years-old and suffered from chronic Chron’s disease. She went to the emergency room with severe stomach pain in 2008. She went to another hospital a couple of days later with similar pain and additional symptoms.
The second hospital had a single surgeon on call at the time and the CT tech wasn’t out sick. It took 10 hours for the woman to get a CT scan and in two days she was dead. Her husband sued the owners of the hospital and a number of physicians. He brought the suit on his behalf as well as on behalf of his children and his wife parents.
Only one of the claims against a physician reached the jury, which found the doctor five percent at fault. The family’s award will only be five percent of the total $5.9 millions because the family previously settled to a confidential amount with the hospital, which the jury found 95% liable.
Doctors and hospitals have a responsibility to patients to maintain a certain standard of care and if substandard care means a missed diagnoses, patients or their families may be able to recover for subsequent injuries.
Our
Blogs
Missed diagnoses deemed malpractice
Author
Jay W. Dankner
JAY W. DANKNER was born, raised and educated in Brooklyn, New York. After graduation from law school in 1973, he joined the firm of the legendary, Harry H, Lipsig, under whose tutelage he learned the intricacies of civil litigation and trials. He tried and won his first case against General Motors in a case involving a design defect within weeks after his admission. Thereafter, he focused his attention on the emerging and developing field of law known as products liability litigation.
Categories
Recent Post
Case Results
$10,000,000
Sexual assault of a child at a summer baseball camp
$8,300,000
Delay in treatment of peripheral vascular disease in a 52 year old woman resulting in loss of lower limb
