Articles Posted in Misdiagnosis Infection

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Baby Doe was born prematurely and spent the first 98 days of her life in a hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit and special care nursery. The day after the baby’s discharge, her mother noticed that she was irritable, grunting, and not eating.

Doe’s mother called the hospital that day and spoke to Nurse Roe, who told the mother that Doe was fine and that she should simply keep her pediatric appointment for the following day.

Four hours after that call, Doe’s parents found Baby Doe turning blue in her crib. She was rushed to a hospital where she later died. An autopsy revealed that Doe’s death resulted from a serious but treatable bacterial infection.
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Talanda Blevins, 38, was admitted to a hospital for an induction of labor. She was attended by obstetrician Dr. James Holzhauer. During her labor, her uterus ruptured, resulting in fetal distress.

Dr. Holzhauer performed a cesarean section, during which it was alleged that Dr. Holzhauer lacerated the patient’s bladder.

She suffered significant blood loss while in recovery, and this was reported to Dr. Holzhauer.
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Lindsey Setzer was 24 years old and fourteen weeks pregnant with her first child. She experienced right-sided flank pain, abdominal cramping and nausea. She went to a hospital emergency room, where a nurse took her vital signs, which showed that she had an elevated temperature and a high pulse rate of 144.

After an ultrasound, Setzer was diagnosed as having kidney stones and discharged. Early the following morning, she went to a different hospital; this time she was diagnosed as having sepsis and respiratory distress. She underwent placement of a ureteral stent and suffered a spontaneous abortion during the procedure.

She continues to suffer chronic fatigue and memory issues resulting from the sepsis and has been diagnosed as having post-sepsis syndrome.
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A premature Baby Doe, at 30 weeks’ gestation, was delivered at Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center. Shortly after her birth, Baby Doe was diagnosed as having a right-sided cephalohematoma, which was confirmed by a CT scan.

A cephalohematoma is a collection of blood that occurs underneath the skin in the periosteum of an infant’s skull bone. Cephalohematoma does not pose any risk to the brain, but it causes unnecessary pooling of the blood from damaged blood vessels between the skull and the interlayers of the baby’s skin. In almost all cases, a cephalohematoma will go away within weeks or months. It usually appears as a bump on a baby’s skull.

The defendant neonatologist, Dr. John Chan, diagnosed Baby Doe as having a subgaleal hemorrhage and ordered that the baby’s head be wrapped with an ACE bandage as a pressure dressing.
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Baby Doe, a twin, was born at 32 weeks gestation. Baby Doe was admitted to a hospital’s NICU where she remained in stable condition for several days.

Baby Doe developed a low-grade fever, tachycardia and irregular breathing. The next day, Baby Doe’s condition worsened. Her oxygen saturation dipped down to 78 percent, her glucose dramatically increased and her physical movement decreased.

A blood culture led to a diagnosis of bacterial infection, for which Baby Doe was given antibiotics. Within two weeks, Baby Doe was diagnosed as having a brain abscess and underwent surgery.
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