The wife and children of a man who died after waiting six hours to be admitted to St. Joseph's Medical Center in Towson were awarded $1.44 million in compensation today, by a jury in Baltimore County.

Thomas Murphy, 59, had gone to Patient First on June 9, 2007, complaining of fever and chills.  He was seen and sent home. The next day, Mr. Murphy presented to St. Joseph's at approximately 5:30 p.m.and was seen by the defendant ER physician who failed to diagnosis sepsis and instead gave him an antibiotic and a liter of IV fluids for suspected pneumonia. A CT scan was performed which the family argued, would have shown Mr. Murphy did not have pneumonia by 8:30 that evening.  For reasons that were never explained by the defendant, Murphy remained in the ER until after midnight.  Despite being transferred to the intensive care unit at 3 a.m the next day, and going to surgery 11 hours after that to attempt to discover the source of the sepsis, Murphy died of septic shock the next afternoon.

The defendant maintained that once he called the hospital's admitting floor physician at 9:10 p.m. the night Murphy came to the hospital, Murphy was no longer his responsibility and that the ER nurses failed to communicate the patient's worsening condition to him.

Murphy's widow was awarded economic damages of $840,000.00, which included future lost wages, and $300,000.00 for her pain and suffering. His children were each awarded $100,000.00, as was his estate.  The physician at Patient First, the hospital and the floor doctor all settled before trial for confidential amounts. An appeal by the defendant may be filed for, among other reasons, the family's refusal to disclose the prior settlements with the remaining ER physician defendant.  The defendant argued he had the right to know the amounts of these settlements prior to trial.

Ordinarily, the benefit of receiving a cardiac stent far outweighs the risks of stent surgery and the necessary postoperative treatment. There are however sizeable risks to consider if you are fortunate enough to have the time and accurate information about your condition to do so. Recently, more than 500 patients at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Towson, Maryland were advised they may have received cardiac stents unnecessarily and to consult with their private physicians. These patients didn't have the time to realize they didn't need the stents to begin with and are now faced with questions about their medical future.

Stents when needed do save lives. They are deployed to open clogged arteries and allow greater blood flow to the heart. The need for a stent is based in part on the level of occlusion or interruption of normal blood flow in the particular vessel at issue. Some vessels are primary and are thus critically important to the heart's vitality and need good blood flow at all times. Other vessels are secondary or "collateral" and a blockage there is less significant and often requires no treatment.

Approximately 30 percent of stent patients form scar tissue around the stent. Over time, the scar tissue captures plague that flows naturally through the vessels and is what usually has caused the clot formation necessitating the stent placement. Studies have show that a second clot or blockage is more likely to occur at the stent site than in other portions of otherwise smooth vessel. Many interventional cardiologists who perform stenting procedures now use a "drug eluting" stent, which slowly emits a drug over time to prevent or diminish the scarring and clotting that may occur at the stent site. Because these drug eluting stents are relatively new to the market, the long term consequences to patients is uncertain. Indeed they are FDA approved, but as we have seen in other drug recall cases, FDA approval does not guarantee safety.

A clot that forms in a vessel may travel to the lungs or the brain and cause an embolism or stroke. These events are frequently life threatening and can, at minimum, change significantly the quality of a patient's life. Patients usually are prescribed blood thinning agents such as Plavix ® after stent surgery to prevent clots and stroke. Again, although FDA approved, the long term use of such drugs may cause complications and may interfere with the need for emergency surgery should that become necessary. Surgeons must deal with those on blood thinners and must take emergency action to normalize the patient's coagulation factor before operating. Otherwise, a patient may bleed to death on the operating table.

Allergic reactions have also been reported following stent surgery. One study conducted by researchers at Northwestern Memorial Hospital found instances of reactions to the polymer used in the stents and reported instances of severe complications and death. An allergic reaction such as those reported may require premature discontinuance of the anti-coagulation drugs such as Plavix®, which can cause other complications.

Weill Cornell Medical College has an excellent online resource for questions about stents. We encourage our readers to review that site and its references for further information.

The lawyers at Belsky, Weinberg & Horowitz, LLC are representing individuals with claims against St. Joseph's Medical Center and Dr. Mark Midei.

By now, many people are familiar with the news that a cardiologist at St. Joseph's Hospital in Towson, Maryland has been accused of inserting coronary artery stents that were not medically necessary, exposing hundreds of his patients to harm from long-term use of blood thinners and the risk of the possibility of heart attack or stroke.  St. Joseph's recently sent letters to Dr. Mark Midei's patients, alerting them to the possbility that the stents placed in their hearts were unnecessary.

It appears that the situation at St. Joseph's may not be an isolated event.  Dr.Christopher Mallavarapu, a cardiologist in Louisiana, discovered that his partner, Dr. Mehmood Patel, was also placing stents in his patient's coronary arteries that had no blockage in them.  After reviewing Dr. Patel's files, and discovering that the unnecessary stents were fraudulently billed to Medicare, Dr. Mallavarapu contacted the federal government which ultimately convicted Dr. Patel of health care fraud and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

The stents are placed without any oversight by another physician or a radiologist to confirm that the stent was actually needed.  Further, even though the nurses who assist the cardiologist may know that the physician is committing fraud, they are reluctant to speak up, fearing for their jobs given the amount of money a cardiologist brings to his hospital for inserting the stents.  Until there is a better system of oversight and review of the procedures physicians perform, patients will continue to be at risk of harm by these greedy docs.

In what is considered to be the largest award of damages in a medical malpractice case in Minnesota, and one of the largest in the United States, a jury has awarded $23.2 million on February 11, 2010 to the mother of a baby who suffered serious permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy during her birth.

The lawsuit alleged that the defendant, Dr. Gabrielle Olson (who was a family medicine physician and not an obstetrician),along with several nurses, failed to recognize obvious signs of fetal distress, failed to ensure that the baby received enough oxygen during the delivery and failed to perform an emergency C-section.  Dr. Olson, along with Affilitated Community Medical Centers (ACMC) and Rice Memorial Hospital were sued.  Dr. Olson was later dismissed from the case, as she was considered to have been an agent of ACMC.  The jury found that ACMC was 80% negligent and Rice Memorial 20% negligent.

The baby, born in 2007, now suffers seizures, spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy and other neurologic impairment, and will require lifetime medical care as a result of the negligence of the defendants.  The verdict encompasses $1.7 million for past medical expenses, $10 million for future care, $10 million for emotional distress, and $1.5 million for lost earning capacity.  Both defendants are expected to appeal the verdict.

As reported by the Baltimore Sun today, on March 1, 2010, a Baltimore City jury awarded more than $123,000 to two women illegally stripped searched at a Brooklyn bar after Baltimore Police Sgt. Allen Adkins allegedly falsefied evidence to make it appear as if the women were dealing drugs out of the bar. A multi-count lawsuit was filed by Jennell and Shaketa Causey alleging false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, battery, negligence and other civil violations. Jennell Causey was awarded $90,000. Her sister, Shaketa, received $34,000.

The two women were strip searched and charged with drug possesion with intent to distribute. Drugs were allegedly found during the search of a sufficient quantity to generate criminal charges. Those charges were later dropped by the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office, after it determined Sgt. Adkins' account of the incident was deemed untrustworthy.

Plaintiffs' counsel was Richard Winelander.

On February 16, 2010, a Fairfax County, VA jury awarded nearly $3 million to the family of a man who died from an undiagnosed espophgeal (throat) tear.  Hector Alvarez, who was 52, had difficulty swallowing a piece of meat in July of 2006.  He went to Inova HeathPlex where a radiologist diagnosed him with a hiatal hernia.  He was initally treated with oral medications, but his pain continued.   It was not until the next afternoon that his physicians spotted the perforated exophagus.  Before the surgery to repair the tear could be performed, Mr. Alvarez went into cardiac arrest and died.

His wife filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the radiologist and the anesthesiology group who admnistered anesthesia ten days before Mr. Alvarez arrested and died.  Trial was held, and the jury awarded $2,933,500 which included the decedent's future lost wages.  Mr. Alvarez was earning $100,000 at the time of his death.  The attorney for the plaintiffs was John Sellinger.

There is a cap on the amount of damages that can be recovered in Virginia.  Currently the cap is $1.85 million.  Juries are never told of the existence of a cap during the trial.  The verdict will likely be reduced on post-trial motions.