Tampabay.com reported on July 3, 2010 in “St. Petersburg surgeon accused of malpractice in death of Chicago doctor” that a St. Petersburg, FL surgeon is being sued for medical malpractice in the death of a Chicago doctor whom he performed an appendectomy in 2009.
The plaintiff in the suit is the doctor’s husband, who is also a physician. The FL doctor was accused of negligence in his care of the Chicago doctor, who died at Palms of Pasadena Hospital after complaining of abdominal pain. After it was determined the Chicago patient had an inflamed appendix, the FL doctor performed the appendectomy. The Chicago patient’s blood pressure dropped while her heart rate climbed after the surgery. Allegedly neither the FL doctor nor the nursing staff adequately monitored the Chicago patient’s condition. When the patient told the nursing staff she was not being cared for properly because her blood pressure was too low, the nursing staff did not call or notify her doctor, and instead wrote in her chart she was engaged in “attention seeking behavior.” The patient was found “pulseless, unresponsive and without respiration or blood pressure.” Her cause of death was post-operative bleeding. The lawsuit claimed the FL doctor failed to review the Chicago patient’s medical chart and failed to diagnose her post-operative bleeding. The FL doctor was one of Tampa Bay area’s better known bariatric, or weight-loss, surgeons.
Sometimes the only protection people have when they go against powerful top-ranked physicians is the jury system.
Medical malpractice is professional negligence by a health care provider who deviates from the reasonable standard of care in the medical community and causes injury or death to the patient.
A plaintiff must establish four elements of negligence for a successful medical malpractice claim:
- The defendant owed a duty to the plaintiff
- The defendant breached the duty
- The breach caused the plaintiff injury
- Damages resulted from the injury
A legal duty exists when a hospital or health care provider agrees to care or treat a patient. The provider breaches a duty when it fails to conform to the standard of care in the jurisdiction evidenced by expert testimony. To qualify as an expert in a medical malpractice case, a person must have sufficient knowledge, education, training, or experience in the specific field before the court to give a reliable opinion. Each Chicago injury lawyer maintains relationships with nationally known experts in medicine to ensure that its cases are well-founded and strongly supported.
Contact us to obtain the maximum monetary compensation for medical malpractice losses.
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