OUR BEST CASES COME FROM ATTORNEYS LIKE YOU Some of our best cases come to our office because attorneys across Southwest and Southside Virginia ask us to help analyze, investigate, and prosecute malpractice claims. Not only will we serve your clients with diligence, we look forward to working with co-counsel to bring matters to a successful resolution.
If your client has a potential medical negligence case that needs to be reviewed, call our office today.
We look forward to working with you in 2011. |
IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD EXPERT Some weeks, it feels like we spend 80% of our time looking for qualified experts to review potential medical malpractice and nursing home neglect cases. We want to find those men and women who are articulate, kind, easy to work with, honest and know what they are talking about. It certainly is a tall order, but one that must be met. Any malpractice attorney can tell you a story about an expert that folded, destroying your case weeks before trial. The goal therefore, is to get the best experts in line, from the very beginning. If counsel refers us a case that has already been filed, we rarely accept. One reason is the desire to know the identity of the reviewing experts, and their qualifications. If you have a case sitting on your desk that requires expert review, it is better to refer to counsel who handles medical negligence cases sooner rather than later. A good expert can tell you the case is not a case, or in the alternative, help you better understand the complex issues of the case prior to filing suit. We are happy to help in that most necessary and important expert search. |
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SUCCESSFUL MEDICAL MALPRACTICE CASES
Here are a few of the cases we successfully resolved in 2010 for victims of medical negligence:
FAILURE TO INFORM FAMILY OF CANCER
A married young mother of two children, age 37, went to her physician for an annual physical. A pap smear revealed HPV and abnormal cells. The physician ordered a Cone Biopsy be performed within the month. The pathology report from the biopsy revealed adenoid cystic carcinoma or cervical cancer.
Despite this finding, the physician failed to report the severity of the pathology report but advised the patient and her family to undergo a hysterectomy. The patient did not go through with the hysterectomy. Nine months later she began to experience abdominal "bloating" and sought medical care from her primary care doctor (another physician), who diagnosed the presence of a pelvic mass. The primary care physician immediately sent the patient to a nearby hospital for a CT scan, the results of which revealed a 14-cm mass within the patient's pelvis, as well as masses throughout the liver consistent with liver metastasis likely related to the pelvic mass.
The patient was immediately referred to the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center for a surgical oncology consult. Sadly she died within 30 days of arriving to Wake Forest due to complications from her metastatic cervical cancer.
Co-counsel in case: Ebb Williams, Martinsville, Va.
FAILURE TO DIAGNOSE COMPARTMENT SYNDROME LEADS TO ABOVE THE KNEE AMPUTATION
A mother and wife, in her 60's, went to the emergency room complaining of pain in her right leg and right knee. Plaintiff advised the defendant physician of her history of deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, diabetes, hypertension, hypokalemia, asthma, Greenfield filter placement, right knee replacement surgery, among other medical conditions and surgical history. Most significantly, the patient was taking coumadin and had an INR of 5.0 in the ED. Despite her signs and symptoms, she was diagnosed as having joint effusion and sent home on pain killers.
48 hours later, she returned to the ED with numbness and excruciating pain in her right knee and calf. Plaintiff described the pain as throbbing and on a scale of 10, rated the pain a 10. A surgical consult revealed the patient lacked sensation in her foot, a non-dopplerable dorsalis pedis pulse and she was unable to dorsiflex or plantarflex her right foot.
Although a fasciotomy was performed some 50 hours after her initial presentation to the ED, muscles and soft tissue had already died due to the lack of blood flow. An amputation was necessary.
Settlement: $890,000.
HOSPITAL WOUND CASE
The plaintiff, a woman in her 60's, went to a Virginia hospital for surgical care. Three days after surgery the nursing staff realized she had developed a stage III pressure ulcer on her sacrum. Plaintiff alleged the hospital was negligent for failing to turn her, provide pressure relief, examine her skin and provide wound care, despite the fact the plaintiff was a known risk for wound development. She required additional hospitalization, home health care, wound vac and additional wound care for many months. The case settled months before trial was scheduled.
Settlement: $325,000.
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A Consumer's Guide to Long Term Care Choices in Virginia
I will never forget the first nursing home I visited as a child. My Mother took my twin brother and me to visit our great grandmother who lived in a skilled nursing facility in Northern Virginia. Grandmom Brown was 99 years old, frail, and sadly, not aware of our visit. On the way out of the facility, another resident of the nursing home saw Brett and me (then no more than five years old) and began to scream. Apparently two children had been lost, and she believed it was a miracle we survived.
I hid behind my mother as the woman cried out "we thought you had drowned - oh, what a miracle! The children are saved, the children are saved!" I didn't understand how she could have confused us for these other children, and wanted to assure her we were not the missing children. My twin brother, more sensitive and clearly more aware of the actual issue, assured the woman we were fine and told her not to worry anymore. At least that is how I remember the day, the facility,and our interactions many years later.
Nursing homes can be difficult places to visit, and when a family faces long term care choices, it is often in a time of crisis.
With little information out there on how to chose long term care facilities, the differences between the level of care etc., Dan and I decided to write a book on the subject.
A CONSUMER'S GUIDE TO LONG TERM CARE CHOICES IN VIRGINIA was written to help families facing these difficult health care choices. The book will be available this Winter and will be free for anyone who wants a copy.
We hope to use our experiences in this industry, to help those families faced with such difficult decisions. Please let us know if your clients could use this valuable information
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