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Tag Archives: medical malpractice

July 17, 2013 News
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Hospital error kills patient after giving her wrong blood transfusion

New York — A Brooklyn, NY hospital reported that a patient died after a hospital mistake led to the patient receiving the wrong blood type. They believe an error in blood typing in the hospital’s laboratory led to the deadly mistake. It was unclear as to why the mistake occurred but some patient safety advocates believe it may have been preventable. They say that human error is often responsible for medical mistakes. A top medical malpractice lawyer in New York City explained that sometimes errors like this occur when a nurse, doctor or phlebotomist don’t properly label blood sample tube at the bedside, as is protocol. Other times the slip up can occur in the lab when the technician improperly handles the blood sample. Investigators in the field note that it will be necessary to determine if the lab technician was fully trained to conduct the testing and to see if all of the medical equipment being used was inspected, calibrated correctly and in full working condition. They also say that this type of critical testing should be double-checked for accuracy due to the significant nature of such a transfusion error and the possibility of a mix up. Pending further investigation into this suspected medical malpractice episode, the hospital has been directed to send all blood transfusion testing and work to outside lab facilities. The hospital is currently sending the blood testing to another hospital in Brooklyn. Doctors explain that when a patient receives the wrong blood type, the body sees the blood transfusion as an invader and therefore reacts to the dangerous situation quickly. This leaves nurses and doctors precious little time to recognize the mistake and try life saving intervention. According to activists, it will also be necessary to determine if the hospital staff missed the diagnosis when the patient’s condition started to deteriorate, compounding the medical error. See this article for more information about the fatal blood transfusion mistake at the hospital.

Photo by U.S. Navy photo [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

March 19, 2013 News
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Woman dies of lung cancer after missed diagnosis

New York — A woman from Brooklyn, NY died from complications of lung cancer after doctors at the hospital delayed diagnosis of her deadly condition. Family of the victim say that the hospital’s misdiagnosis was due to not following up on a suspicious finding in an x-ray several years earlier. A small nodule or mass was spotted on a chest x-ray but her doctors failed to properly evaluate this, delaying her cancer diagnosis for over two years. Reports show that the doctors working in the New York City owned hospital were negligent by not fully reading and acting on the x-ray report from the radiologist, which pointed out the suspicious spot and recommended specific follow-up instructions. The missed diagnosis of her lung cancer allowed the disease to continue growing until it metastasized, spreading to her other lung, liver, spine and brain. The original hospital error was compounded when subsequent clinic doctors kept treating the woman’s cough and difficulty breathing as asthma. Those doctors never ordered another chest x-ray or properly reviewed the original one.

Experts have predicted that the woman’s cancer could have been treated properly and her life could have been saved had the doctors not committed medical malpractice several times over those two years. Patient activists say that doctor mistakes like this often occur when protocols and conditions created by the hospital or office don’t meet basic standards for patient safety. They warn that doctors and nurses as well as hospital administrators need to take a close look at the day-to-day running of their facilities in order to ensure the constant rush of patients doesn’t allow for overlooking things. Some note that doctors are quick to order tests but sometimes don’t leave enough time to look at the test results. A medical malpractice lawyer in New York says that when a doctor doesn’t order the proper diagnostic tests and when he or she doesn’t follow up on the tests that were ordered, both situations constitute medical malpractice. Find out more about this medical error case and the consequences here.

Read about another case of failure to diagnose, where top medical malpractice attorneys helped the injured party receive rightful compensation in the amount of $3,425,000.

Photo by Nevit Dilmen (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons