Expert Medical Malpractice Lawyers

Other Medical Issues
Endocrinology
Emergency Medicine
Family Practice
Gastroenterology
Hematology

Endocrinology

Cases that we have developed and handled range from delayed diagnosis of juvenile diabetes to failure to diagnose treatable thyroid cancer by confusing it with histoplasmosis due to failure to recognize the pulmonary fibrosis which resulted from the thyroid cancer. We have successfully handled cases involving failure to properly and promptly treat diabetic ketoacidosis (a diabetic coma-like condition) resulting in untimely deaths.

Emergency Medicine

The specialty of emergency room medicine is of relatively recent origin, certainly since the 1950s. However, it is of great import in the medical malpractice arena. While many patients who present to the emergency room of the local or community hospital probably are not an emergency in the true sense, there are many critically ill patients who do come to the ER and who require optimal and sophisticated care without which they die or are seriously disabled. For instance, failure to diagnose heart attack, pulmonary emboli (clots), stroke, aneurysm or other neurological bleeds will probably result in death or life crippling conditions. Emergency room physicians not only must be able to recognize the symptoms of these diseases, but also must know the emergent treatment required by the standard of care, such as CT scans (computerized tomographic scan), MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) radiographic studies, laboratory studies, etc. Fast and accurate evaluation is necessary and transfer to tertiary care centers must be done timely and when necessary.

Family Practice

Routinely we find negligence in family practitioners who fail to recognize the need to refer the patient to a specialist. This is particularly true where the family practice doctor is the gatekeeper and must approve the patient seeing a specialist. The world of HMO's can exaggerate this problem. While historically family doctors were seldom the target of a medical malpractice claim, the progression of medicine and HMO rules and regulations have brought more and more family practice doctors to the malpractice case. Family doctors who do not recognize the female patient's needs for a proper workup as a result of a lump in her breast is a familiar case. Failing to refer for mammogram, breast ultrasonography and breast biopsy are significant claims in the last decade. Prostate cancer diagnosis delay for failing to recognize an elevated PSA and refer the patient is a frequent claim. The failure to understand and recognize the signs and symptoms of coronary artery disease to the extent the patient is at risk for having a fatal heart attack seems to be on the rise with family practice. The same hypothesis holds true with lung cancer in the middle-aged patient who is or has been a smoker.

Gastroenterology

This special area of medicine includes the entire digestive system including the esophagus, stomach, intestines, liver, gallbladder and pancreas.

The areas of concern with gastroenterologists come in a wide range of negligent acts. Failure to prevent a bleeding ulcer from causing death, and failure to prevent nutritional cirrhosis of the liver in cases involving jejunoileostomy bypasses for obesity resulting in delay of surgical reversal and death from liver failure are just two examples.

Hematology

The treatment of blood disorders and dysfunction has led to various types of medical malpractice cases. Those most significant in recent years involve allowing the HIV virus to invade our blood banks. Prior to that, cases of hepatitis from blood transfusion were prominent. More interesting is failure to manage rare clotting disorders or the potential for clotting disorders, resulting in stroke. Fatal pulmonary emboli (clots) may have been prevented with proper hematologic consult and/or proper treatment. The failure to call these "blood specialists" (hematologists) to consult seems the custom now days rather than the norm. The failure to recognize DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation) has resulted in untimely and preventable deaths.