What We Have Done

An orthopaedic surgeon applied a plaster to a patient’s leg after setting a fracture. Next morning on rounds, the patient was complaining of pain in the leg and the toes were swollen. The surgeon wrote on the chart “Plaster too tight foot swollen.” He later removed the plaster and applied a new plaster. He then wrote “tight plaster removed, new plaster applied.” When the patient was discharged, he was found to have nerve damage and sued.

The doctor was found liable for applying the plaster too tightly.

A physician prescribed a tranquilizer for a young house wife who was “suffering under the burden of caring for three children.” A few weeks later while driving to the supermarket with her three children in the car, she fell asleep at the wheel and ran into a wall. All four in the car were injured. She sued the doctor. When the doctor was asked “Did you warn the patient that the tranquilizer could cause drowsiness and that she should not drive when taking it?” the doctor replied “no.” “I thought every one know that.” “Besides I thought the pharmacist would put on the usual warning label.”

The physician’s insurance paid a hefty sum.

A chicken farmer when asked by a physician’s nurse “Do you have any allergies?” replied “no.” After examination, the physician ordered an injection of penicillin. The patient immediately suffered respiratory obstruction. He sued the physician after recovery. The patient claimed that he thought the nurse’s question pertained to hay fever and animals. He said she did not make it clear what she was talking about and he was not told he was being given penicillin.

The doctor’s insurance settled out of court.

In another suit involving penicillin a patient died in the doctor’s office because the doctor did not have any equipment to handle a severe reaction. This case was indefensible and a sizable settlement was paid by the doctor – who was not insure.

A surgeon told an operating room nurse to remove a dressing and clean a child’s skin in preparation for reducing a compound fracture of the clavicle. Later when the cast was removed, there was a skin burn from the anterior shoulder to the small of the back. The child’s parents sued. Only the surgeon was liable and had to pay.

A 27 year old woman was admitted for treatment of a 5mm celulus obstructing the distal third of her right ureter. The kidney was damaged previously because of a congenital kink at the upper end of the same ureter. The kidney was functioning poorly and in danger of further damage. The urologist performed a pydoplasty to remove the kink from the ureter and a nephrotomy to provide drainage from the kidney. Before the operation, he ordered a pint of blood to be made available for transfusion. The blood was not used and was sent back to the blood bank.

When subsequent attempts to remove the stone by cystoscopy failed, the doctor scheduled a second operation. Because he expected this operation to be brief, he ordered no blood.

Shortly before the second operation began, a circulating nurse in the operating room, an employee of the hospital, found a note on the desk saying “The patients blood is in the refrigerator.” Wrongly assuming that the blood was for the person in the operating room, she gave the blood to the nurse anesthetist in the case, an employee of the hospital anaesthetist.

The operation turned out to be longer than anticipated. In the course of the operation, the nurse anaesthetist said to the surgeon, “Doctor I have a pint of blood for this patient, shall I give it to her now?”

Assuming that this was the pint of blood he had ordered for the first operation, the doctor replied, “Yes give it to her.”

Ten hours later the lady was dead.

The patient’s husband sued the surgeon, the hospital, as employer of the circulating nurse, and the anaesthetist who was not even present but was the employer of the nurse anaesthetist.

All three were found liable and had to pay.

A 49 year old lady was scheduled for vaginoplasty. The patient suffered a cardiac arrest after being given a spiral anaesthetic. A thoractomy was quickly performed and cardiac massage performed for one hour without the resumption of spontaneous breathing. In the meantime she was given oxygen under pressure.

Present were the surgeon, the anaesthetist, two residents and part of the time, the hospital’s chief of anesthesia and another anaesthetist.

The woman’s life was saved, but she suffered disabling brain damage. The patient’s husband sued all six doctors and the hospital.

There was no indication on the record as to who had actually given the spinal. There was no indication of a discussion on a “surgical plan.” There was no explanation of the chart entry “mixture of tetracaine and epinephrine given at T-10!!”

The two residents and the staff anaesthetist were dropped from the case, and the hospital and the other three doctors had to pay.