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July
- Spirou v. Hart to Heart Ambulance Service (filed July 3, 2017): In the process of transporting a woman from the hospital back to her home after a knee surgery, the health care providers from the ambulance service moved the woman to a chair in order to help her up the steps in front of her home. The chair folded in on itself, the stretcher rolled away, and the woman fell to the ground.
- Schoenberger v. Longview Nursing Home (filed July 3, 2017): After suffering a fall, a resident of the nursing home vomited several times and became incontinent. An x-ray showed no fracture or dislocation, but a physician was not notified about the woman’s change in status. She later became lethargic, with sluggish pupils and speech, and was transferred to the emergency room. At the hospital she was diagnosed with a severe brain injury, and died later the same day.
- Freeman v. Brinton Woods Health Care Center (filed July 3, 2017): No fall precautions were taken, even though a woman was classified as a high fall risk. She fell several times during a single morning shift, causing injury and re-injury to a large bleeding skin opening on her leg. Still no fall precautions were taken, and the woman fell again and hit her head. She later died from causes unrelated to her falls.
- Miller v. Bel Air Health and Rehabilitation Center (filed July 5, 2017): A man with the beginnings of a pressure ulcer was admitted to the rehabilitation center. His health care providers failed to treat him timely and appropriately, and his ulcers worsened until they became infected and reached Stage IV. He eventually died of pneumonia, which resulted from the infections he acquired from his Stage IV ulcers.
- Dowling v. A.R.T. Institute of Washington (filed July 5, 2017): After fertilization with an unnecessary intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a baby was born with severe birth defects, requiring multiple surgeries and eventually resulting in his death. ICSI can help infertile men become genetic fathers, but it has been proven to increase the risk of birth defects. The baby’s father had sperm motility of above 40%, and therefore ICSI was not necessary for fertilization.
- Newcomb v. Pickus (filed July 6, 2017): A dentist place ill-fitting mini dental implants in a woman’s mouth and jawbone to replace five extracted teeth. The implants were rough, too wide for her mouth, and unevenly placed, causing pain and difficulty chewing.
- Blum v. Mercy Medical Center (filed July 6, 2017): A woman underwent surgical treatment for spinal stenosis, or a narrowing of the spinal canal. In the days after surgery, she continually called her doctor to report pain, headaches, and fluid draining from her incision. After two weeks she was finally given an appointment with the doctor, who did not report any signs or symptoms of a spinal fluid leak. The next day the woman was found unconscious in her home, cool to the touch with mottled legs and vomit by her side. She was found to be suffering from a severe infection. After spending the next three months in rehabilitation centers, she was discharged back home with continued difficulty walking, back and leg pain, hearing loss, and cognitive deficits.
- Harrison v. Nayudu (filed July 7, 2017): A general dentist determined that his patient needed a root canal, but chose to perform the procedure himself rather than refer her to a more educated and experienced endodontist. During the root canal, a highly toxic bleach came into contact with the woman’s soft tissues, causing pain, swelling, and difficulty breathing. The woman’s face remains uneven where her skin was stretched due to the swelling.
- Alper v. Charles Emergency Physicians / Greater Baltimore Medical Center (filed July 7, 2017): A woman was admitted to the hospital after experiencing shortness of breath, low blood pressure, light-headedness, and a seizure. She had another seizure in the hospital, and went into cardiac arrest before medication could be administered. She regained a pulse after a temporary pacemaker was used, but she never regained consciousness. She eventually developed multi-organ failure and died.
- Almasi v. Powers (filed July 7, 2017): Following neurosurgery at MedStar Montgomery Medical Center, a woman experienced leg pain, back pain, and foot drop. The surgeon had placed hardware and screws in a manner that compressed the woman’s spinal cord. She has undergone additional medical treatment, including surgery, to treat her misplaced hardware and broken screw, but continues to have difficulty walking.
- White v. Bay Manor Nursing Home / Future Care (filed July 7, 2017): After a woman complained of constipation, her doctors ordered a CT and realized that she had rectal fecal impaction. Still, she was given no treatment. A few days later, when she developed a low blood pressure, rapid heart rate, and difficulty breathing, her doctors performed an exploratory laparotomy. While they were examining her abdominal organs during the procedure, they discovered her perforated colon, gangrenous bowel, and inflammation of the membrane lining her abdominal wall (peritonitis). She then underwent a partial colectomy and ileostomy, which later caused her to develop multiple infections. Soon after she died from the multisystem organ failure that resulted from her infections and peritonitis.
- Jackson v. Johns Hopkins Hospital (filed July 10, 2017): A man voluntarily entered the facility to receive pain management treatment. Even though he was permitted to leave his care unit at any time, nurses at the facility denied his request to leave. When the man began packing up his belongings anyway, he was attacked and injured by security officers, restrained in his bed, and moved to a private room. During the night that he was restrained, the man was prevented from using the bathroom, his pain medication was delayed, and his doctors were not notified of the incident. He was finally released the next morning, after he was seen by his doctors.
- Deyo v. Walters (filed July 10, 2017): During a procedure to remove a man’s wisdom teeth, the dentist left behind residual root tips of one tooth, fractured a buccal plate and a lingual plate, and caused right tongue anesthesia.
- Lins v. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (filed July 10, 2017): A psychologist at the Baltimore VA Medical Center Psychosocial Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program made sexual advances toward a patient under the guise of providing therapy. She used her patient’s history of childhood abuse, which he confided to her during therapy, to coerce him into having a sexual relationship with her.
- Lins v. Burns (filed July 10, 2017)
- Kennedy v. University of Maryland Obstetrical and Gynecological Associates (filed July 10, 2017): In this wrongful birth case, several doctors, over the course of multiple ultrasounds, failed to report abnormalities of the fetus’ head circumference to the pregnant mother and her Nurse Midwife, and failed to warn them about the possibility that the child would be born with brain damage.
- Nehring v. Stroh (filed July 10, 2017): Without performing the appropriate tests to determine whether or not surgery was medically necessary, a podiatrist performed a surgical procedure to treat a woman’s tendonitis and a fracture of one of the small bones in her foot. The woman was never informed that the surgery was unnecessary, and she was never provided with less traumatic alternatives for treatment. During the surgery, the podiatrist severed and split two tendons in the woman’s foot.
- Cox v. New Horizons Health Services (filed July 11, 2017): A resident of Oakview Nursing Center was a high risk for falling, but her health care providers failed to order any preventative measures to keep her safe from falling. She fell three times while residing at the nursing home. During her last fall she suffered a hip fracture, which caused her health to deteriorate until her death.
- Haug v. Gamson (filed July 11, 2017): After a root canal procedure, a man continues to suffer from constant numbness on the right side of his face and from periodic weakness around the right side of his mouth.
- Ubunama v. Sinai Hospital of Baltimore (filed July 11, 2017): Despite obvious signs of pre-term labor, doctors sent a pregnant woman home after she presented to the hospital with vaginal bleeding. The next day she arrived back at the hospital via ambulance after experiencing vaginal bleeding once again. Her baby was born later that day, at 23 weeks and 2 days gestation. As a result of his unnecessarily premature birth, the baby suffers from global developmental delay.
- Rongione v. Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center (filed July 12, 2017): During a hip replacement procedure, the surgeon used the wrong version of the acetabular cup at an incorrect angle of inclination. As a result, the patient’s hip became unstable, and he could feel it pop in and out of its socket when he moved. The patient underwent a revision surgery and was given a right heel lift to compensate for his lengthened left leg, but he continues to have severe pain in his hip.
- Peters v. Genesis Healthcare (filed July 12, 2017): A man complaining of lower abdominal pain was examined by a doctor and had lab work that suggested that he had a kidney injury. No CT scan was ordered at that time. He continued to complain of abdominal pain, and in spite of the classic symptoms of appendicitis, no appropriate diagnostic tool was used. It wasn’t until several days later when he finally had a CT scan, showing abscesses in his abdomen. Because of the delayed diagnosis and treatment, the man’s appendix had perforated, causing a fatal case of infection.
- Jacobs v. Pulmonary and Critical Care Associates of Baltimore / Harford Memorial Hospital (filed July 13, 2017): A woman was diagnosed with pneumonia and treated at Hartford Memorial Hospital. When her health did not improve, an EKG was taken and confirmed a structural abnormality of the heart, which would require further diagnosis and intervention. The woman’s health continued to decline, and she eventually suffered a fatal cardiac arrest. Had her doctors performed an echocardiogram or other diagnostic studies sooner, they would have realized she was actually suffering from endocarditis and mitral regurgitation, she would have had a surgical valve replacement, and made an uneventful recovery.
- Gosnell v. Sinai Hospital of Baltimore (filed July 13, 2017): Health care providers failed to recognize a woman’s high risk of developing a Pulmonary Embolism (PE), a blood clot blocking blood flow through arteries in the lungs, during or after knee surgery. The woman was discharged from the hospital after her surgery without the medications or other devices that are necessary to prevent a potentially fatal PE. Eight days later she returned to the hospital with complaints of chest pain and shortness of breath, the classic symptoms of PE, went into cardiac arrest, and died.
- Mason v. Sinai Hospital of Baltimore (filed July 13, 2017): A woman was admitted to the hospital, complaining of leg pain after falling. An EKG showed abnormal heart rhythms, but the woman was treated only for her leg pain. Because of the abnormal EKG, complaints of generalized body weakness, and her history of chest pain, high blood pressure, and heart failure, the woman was at high risk for developing endocarditis, or an infection in the heart’s inner lining. In spite of these warning signs, a cardiology consult or follow-up studies were never ordered and the woman was never informed of the EKG findings. The woman later died of cardiac arrest during physical therapy in the hospital.
- Moore v. United States of America / University of Maryland Orthopaedic Associates (filed July 13, 2017): After undergoing spinal surgery, a man complained of low back pain and an inability to urinate. An MRI showed a fluid collection that was compressing his spinal nerves, but his doctors interpreted the MRI results as “unremarkable.” Because the man was not timely treated, he developed cauda equine syndrome, causing permanent difficulty walking, inability to urinate, sexual dysfunction, and chronic leg and back pain.
- Jackson v. Everette (filed July 13, 2017): Without obtaining informed consent, a dentist removed one of a woman’s wisdom teeth. In the process of extracting the tooth, the dentist severed or severely traumatized the woman’s left lingual nerve. As a result, a large area of the woman’s mouth and tongue are permanently numb.
- Davis v. Howard County General Hospital (filed July 14, 2017): A man was transported to the hospital, complaining of dizziness, a headache, and difficulty walking without falling. The man fell twice while at the hospital, sustaining a forehead laceration, facial fractures, and a frontal scalp hematoma. After transferring to a different hospital, a CT revealed spinal fractures. During hospitalization, he also developed a small bowel obstruction and a kidney. He then developed difficulty breathing with a reduction in blood oxygen levels, a slow heart rate, and cardiac arrest. After resuscitation efforts, he was unable to pass urine, his abdomen was distended, and his blood oxygen levels dropped further. He went into sharp decline, and was declared dead.
- Vollin v. Angel Lake Assisted Living (filed July 14, 2017): The health care facility failed to take the steps necessary to prevent falls, and failed to send a man to the hospital for evaluation after he did fall. As a result, the subdural hematoma that the man sustained during his fall was not treated in a timely manner, and he subsequently died.
- Galloway-Smith v. Greater Baltimore Medical Center (filed July 14, 2017): Despite signs of fetal distress, including a low fetal heart rate and a ruptured amniotic sac, doctors failed to deliver a woman’s unborn child in time. In addition, the woman was given too much medication, and was never given any updates about her child’s condition. The baby died about nine hours after his birth, with an autopsy determining the cause of death to be prematurity and severe respiratory distress syndrome.
- Kendall v. Holy Cross Health (filed July 14, 2017): After spending three days in the critical care unit because of internal bleeding caused by an adverse drug interaction, the woman seemed to be on the mend. Then, to her family’s confusion, her health care providers insisted that she immediately have a colonoscopy. Even though the woman had been lucid, they did not obtain her informed consent. They obtained hurried, uninformed consent from the woman’s daughter, rather than from her husband or the family point of contact. The colonoscopy was aborted after only ten minutes, due to “insufficient prep.” The woman died immediately after the colonoscopy, apparently of her own accord. The anesthesiologist noted the women’s decreasing heart rate during the procedure, but his report makes no reference to congestive heart failure. Because of her heart condition, she should have been given local anesthesia instead.
- Griffin v. Crescent Cities Center (filed July 14, 2017): A woman who hadn’t been diabetic was found to have an extremely low blood sugar level when she was transported from her rehabilitative care facility to the hospital, and died shortly thereafter. Discrepancies in the nurses’ notes about the timeline when drugs were administered, vitals were taken, and EMS were notified raise questions about the rehabilitation center’s negligence.
- Simpson v. Transitions Healthcare (filed July 17, 2017): While residing at the nursing facility, a woman suffered a fall, causing a fractured femur, pneumonia, stroke, and the deterioration in her health that led to her death.
- Slagle v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States (filed July 17, 2017): During a surgery to remove a ganglion cyst from a woman’s foot, the surgeon caused an injury to her left superficial peroneal nerve. The woman sought a second opinion, and another doctor, after reviewing the pre-operative MRI, said there was never any ganglion cyst to begin with. The woman’s nerve damage causes her chronic left foot pain and a burning, prickling sensation. She underwent a reconstruction surgery, but her symptoms have not improved.
- Brown v. Advanced Surgery Center (filed July 17, 2017): After an endoscopic procedure to visualize the upper part of a woman’s gastrointestinal tract (EGD) could not explain her abdominal pain, constipation, and recent weight loss, her doctors failed to order a colonoscopy. Nine months later, she was finally given a colonoscopy at another facility, and she was diagnosed with stage 3B colon cancer. Her disease had advanced in the year since she first sought treatment for her abdominal pain, and her five-year survival rate was less than 50%.
- Kibler v. Righttime Medical Care (filed July 18, 2017): When a woman presented to Righttime complaining of severe chest and abdominal pain, they gave her a gastrointestinal drug cocktail without performing any lab studies or ordering an electrocardiogram. The woman asked to be transferred by ambulance to an emergency room, but her requests were denied. She later drove herself to Sinai Hospital where a heart attack was immediately suspected. She was sent for an emergent catheterization and several stents were placed in her heart, but the delay in diagnosis and treatment caused irreversible damage to her heart. She suffered multiple complications and died several months later.
- Estraca v. Primary Care Group of Maryland (filed July 18, 2017): When prescribing Lamictal to treat a woman’s bipolar disorder, the physician skipped over the required starting dosage and titration process. The woman was prescribed too much of Lamictal, and she later presented to the emergency department with a fever and painful body wide rash, caused by the excess Lamictal.
- Payano v. Medina (filed July 19, 2017): In the process of placing four dental implants in a woman’s left mandible, the dentists failed to properly image the area where the implants were going to be placed. They should have known that the woman’s cortical bone was not strong enough to successfully hold the implants, but they placed the implants anyway. One of the implants failed due to the poor bone quality. During the placement of the last implant, the dentists struck and damaged a nerve in the woman’s mouth because they did not perform adequate imaging beforehand. The damage to her alveolar nerve causes the woman to experience permanent loss of sensation on the right side of her lip and chin.
- Frick v. Mid-Maryland Musculoskeletal Institute (filed July 19, 2017): Over the course of four years when a girl was evaluated for back asymmetry, her physician continually stated that she had mild scoliosis and her back issues were largely due to her posture. X-rays of the thoracolumbar area were taken to evaluate the spine for scoliosis, but there were never any lateral x-rays taken of the upper thoracic and cervical spine to evaluate for kyphosis. During those four years, the girl went through a growth spurt and her back asymmetry worsened. She eventually sought a second opinion, and learned that her scoliosis was mild but her kyphosis was severe. The kyphosis, if it had been caught earlier, could have been corrected by a back brace, but now that the girl had nearly reached skeletal maturity, she would have to undergo a spinal fusion surgery. She continues to experience back pain, as well as a loss of her range of motion due to the surgery.
- Marshall v. Kenneth J. Sable & Associates (filed July 20, 2017): A man visited the doctor’s office, complaining of lower back and right leg pain, shortness of breath, and numbness. The doctor recommended a physical therapy treatment plan that would help to decrease pain and improve range of motion. Two days later, the man went to the emergency department, was diagnosed with acute respiratory failure, and died. His back and right leg pain had been caused by deep vein thrombi, or a blood clot in his leg. The doctor failed to properly examine the man’s right leg, and soon after the blood clot broke off and blocked an artery in the man’s lungs. 342.
- Chatham-Zan v. Northwest Hospital Center (filed July 21, 2017): In this wrongful death case, a woman was transported by ambulance to the emergency department after complaining of chest pain and difficulty breathing. Despite evidence of a blockage of blood flow to her heart, the woman’s health care providers did not activate the appropriate protocol, did not request a cardiology consultation, and did not implement any medical intervention. Overnight in the hospital, the woman’s condition deteriorated until she was pronounced dead early the next morning. 344.
- Moses v. Johns Hopkins Hospital (filed July 25, 2017): When a man’s symptoms of pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas) returned after the placement of a stent, his doctors suggested he undergo a Whipple Procedure. A Whipple is used to remove cancerous tumors from the head of the pancreas, but there was no diagnostic testing that suggested the man had pancreatic cancer. Nevertheless, doctors unnecessarily removed his pancreas, gallbladder, and a large portion of his gastrointestinal tract.
- Haber v. Sheppard Pratt Health System (filed July 26, 2017): A doctor prescribed various medications to a man in order to treat his anxiety and depression. After taking the medication, the man was found unresponsive in his bed and was pronounced dead. An autopsy concluded that the man died due to the combined toxic effects of the Temazepam, Olanzapine, and Buprenorphine that he had been prescribed.
- El-Ghabbar v. Johns Hopkins Hospital (filed July 27, 2017): Healthcare providers failed to detect an intra-abdominal leak when a man was complaining of severe chest and shoulder pain after his colon surgery. In spite of the tell-tale symptoms and blood test results suggesting an abdominal infection, resulting from the undiagnosed leak, the man was never given a CT scan or an abdominal examination. Over twelve hours after his initial complaints of pain, the man was returned to the operating room and a surgeon found the leak. But the surgical intervention was too late, and the man continued to deteriorate until he suffered a fatal cardiopulmonary arrest.
- Galloway v. MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center (filed July 27, 2017): In the process of transferring from the emergency department to her hospital bed, a woman indicated that she didn’t feel well and she didn’t think she was getting any oxygen from her oxygen mask. The woman was critically dependent on her oxygen tank, and the one she was given for transport through the hospital was defective. The woman went into cardiac arrest and died as a result.
- Lambert v. Women’s Health Partners (filed July 27, 2017): After noticing a mass in her right breast, a woman requested that her doctor order a mammogram. Her doctor refused, and the mass continued to grow. A year later, the woman was finally referred for a mammogram, which demonstrated three malignant masses. The woman later underwent a bilateral mastectomy to treat her breast cancer, which should have been diagnosed and treated much earlier, at a less advanced stage.
- Shelton v. Contemporary OB/GYN Associates / Holy Cross Hospital (filed July 28, 2017): A baby was born with a left brachial plexus injury after physicians used downward traction during the labor and delivery process. Since his birth the child has undergone multiple surgeries, but his arm and shoulder area remains permanently injured.
