Thousands of people every day suffer injury to part of their leg or forearm. Broken bones, burns, and penetrating trauma are daily occurrences and common complaints in America’s emergency departments. Few patients or their families consider a fractured bone or burn will lead to amputation of a leg or part of the arm.
Shockingly, the incidence of surgical items mistakenly left inside patients has remained steady over the years. UpToDate estimates that retained surgical items occur in 1 in every 5500 to 18,760 inpatient operations, but may be as high as 1 of every 1000 to 1500 abdominal cavity operations, and even more common during emergency surgery. When a surgical instrument or sponge is mistakenly left inside a patient after surgery, medical malpractice is inevitably the cause.
During a procedure to perform an endoscopic vein harvest of a patient’s saphenous vein, an inexperienced PA mistakenly removed a large portion of the patient’s saphenous nerve instead of the vein, causing permanent and avoidable nerve injury in his leg as a result of the physician’s assistant failing to follow the standard procedure for vein harvesting.
Hospitals can easily prevent patients from contracting an infection that still affects 45,000 to 90,000 people per year. This infection is from a common device used to administer medicine and fluids called a central venous catheter (CVC), also known as a central line.This device is a tube that leads straight to the patient’s heart, which allows doctors to administer medicine to their patients quickly.
All too often, we see the life-changing consequences caused to patients as a result of delays in diagnosis. While delays in diagnosis can occur in numerous areas of medicine, a particular concern are delays in diagnosis of infection in pregnant women. Maternal deaths from pregnancy related to sepsis (blood infection) while uncommon still occur at an unacceptably high rate.
Our attorneys are investigating the circumstances that led up to a man contracting a fungal infection following lung transplant surgery at UPMC.
An infant’s entrance into the world is a challenging time. Going from intrauterine to extrauterine life results in many physiological changes; the lungs take over gas exchange and become filled with air rather than fluid, and blood flow to the lungs is substantially increased. If appropriate care is not provided to the newborn during delivery or while in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), many different complications, sometimes life threatening, can occur.
Pittsburgh dentist Samuel Pollina, was recently featured in an unflattering investigative report by WTAE’s Paul Van Osdol titled, “Pittsburgh dentist admits using paper clips for root canals.”
During and after birth, infants are at risk of contracting serious infections. Many neonatal infections can lead to devastating consequences if not detected and treated soon after birth. If your infant developed an infection at birth that was not properly recognized and treated, this may have been medical malpractice and you may contact our office to request a free case evaluation.
Delays in diagnosing congenital heart defects can lead to serious injuries and the need to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are structural abnormalities present at birth that affect the heart’s proper functioning. While medical advances have improved diagnosis and treatment, delays in identifying CHDs can have severe consequences, including serious injuries or even death.
Preeclampsia is a disorder that involves rapid increases in blood pressure during pregnancy and the postpartum period (i.e., the six weeks after delivery) – is a condition that still affects five percent of all pregnancies and can be potentially life threatening for both the mother and the baby. Without proper detection and treatment, preeclampsia can result in devastating consequences.
Among the most unfortunate legal cases that our law firm handles are those involving death or injury to a fetus or newborn child. Too often what should be a time of great joy is instead filled with sadness because obstetricians, nurses or hospitals fail to assure that mother and child receive appropriate medical care during labor and delivery.
