Articles Posted in Nursing errors

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Brett L., 12, underwent a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy at a children’s’ hospital. After the procedure, Brett was extubated and transferred to the hospital’s post-anesthesia care unit (PACU).

Over the next 90 minutes, Brett‘s parents noticed that he was snoring. A nurse refused the parents’ request that Brett be repositioned. The parents then sought other help and found a nurse’s aide who turned Brett over to find that he was not breathing at all.

Despite resuscitation efforts, Brett died. He was survived by his parents and two siblings.

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Jerry Medlin, 60, underwent cataract surgery in his left eye. The surgery was completed by an ophthalmologist, Dr. Timothy Young. During the surgery, Dr. Young called for VisionBlue, a staining solution used in cataract surgeries. A nurse during surgery tried unsuccessfully to retrieve the solution from the hospital’s automated medication dispensing system. She then typed “blue” into the system, which gave her the option to receive Methylene Blue.

The nurse took the Methylene Blue to the operating room and told the doctor that she had the drug. A technologist also announced the name of the same drug and then drew up a syringe, which Dr. Young injected into Medlin’s eye.

Medlin suffered toxic anterior segment syndrome. Despite a corneal grafting procedure, Medlin is now blind in his left eye. He filed a lawsuit against the hospital, Dr. Young and his practice, claiming negligent administration of a toxic substance. The lawsuit did not claim lost income.

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On June 13, 2005, Raymond Jackson, then 50, was admitted to. Provena St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Ill., for intractable back pain. He had a pre-existing condition of spine problems and was suffering from an unstable fracture of the T-12 vertebrae, which was not timely diagnosed and treated and caused him to sustain permanent paraplegia by 8 a.m. on June 16, 2005. He died of related causes in 2008.

His medical malpractice lawsuit against several of the defendants settled for $2.77 million in 2012, which included $2.5 million from Provena Hospitals on behalf of its employee nurses and an outside nursing contractor.

The lawsuit had included allegations that after a flat bedrest order was entered at 5 p.m. on June 15, the nursing staff chose not to follow the doctor’s orders to keep the patient on flat bedrest and chose not to prevent him from moving during the next 15 hours, which caused or contributed to the hematoma that was found compressing his spinal cord.

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Mary Mitchell underwent a total abdominal hysterectomy, but the doctor chose not to employ the appropriate prophylactic measures to prevent deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism that was alleged to have caused or contributed to her untimely and unfortunate death.. The doctor who did the surgery, Dr. Amalendu Majumdar was an obstetrician-gynecologist. When this patient flashed signs and symptoms of a pulmonary embolism during the post-op visit that he made on Nov. 20, 2004, he did not recognize and/or treat the signs and symptoms of this emergency.

As a result of Dr. Majumdar’s failings, Mitchell, who was only 43 years old, died the next day from extensive bilateral pulmonary emboli. She is survived by her husband and two children, ages 14 and 24.

The defendant doctor contended that he complied with the medical standard of care, that he did provide proper intra-operative and post-operative prophylaxis and that the patient did not exhibit “classic’ signs of a pulmonary embolism at the post-op visit on Nov. 20.

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Latasha Randall was admitted on June 1, 2010 to Vista East Medical Center in Waukegan, Ill., and was diagnosed with sepsis. Shortly after her admission, she suffered respiratory failure and was intubated.

On June 22, 2010, the defendant general surgeon, Dr. Laurence Gibson, performed an open tracheostomy and was assisted by his physician partner, Dr. Aaron Siegel.

After the procedure, 37-year-old Randall’s face was noticeably swollen and post-op x-rays showed subcutaneous emphysema (air outside lungs, under the skin). Three days later, her attending physician transferred her to Kindred Hospital in Chicago for management of her ventilation, but with a grim prognosis due to her sepsis and other lethal illnesses.

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Kevin Tolson was 49 years old when he was injured as the collapsible barrier he was walking over suddenly shot upward, entangling him. He was taken to the nearby hospital emergency room where he experienced symptoms, which included a cold left foot that he was unable to move, numbness and tingling in the foot as well as severe pain. X-rays were completed and a physician assistant diagnosed knee strain and released Tolson from the hospital with instructions to see an orthopedic surgeon.

When Tolson’s symptoms persisted, he consulted a local doctor who detected low pulse in his leg and instructed him to return to the hospital. An MRI revealed that all of the ligaments in Tolson’s left knee were damaged. Despite surgery, Tolson’s leg had to be amputated above the knee. He had been a security guard working two jobs at about $20 an hour, but is now able to hold only one position due to his medical condition.

Tolson sued the physician assistant and emergency room physician at the hospital and also named the hospital as a party defendant. It was alleged in the lawsuit that these medical providers chose not to diagnose a popliteal artery injury. Tolson claimed that based on his symptoms and the x-rays that were taken at the emergency room a dislocation and possible vascular injury could not be ruled out.

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On March 10, 2007, Ramona Sue Yates was a patient in the emergency room at Memorial Hospital in Carbondale, Ill. She complained of severe back and abdominal pain. The defendant, emergency room physician, Dr. Daniel Doolittle, who was employed by the defendant Legatus Emergency Services, chose not to correctly diagnose or even suspect that Yates was suffering from a bowel obstruction and internal hernia.

Two years earlier, Yates, 47, had undergone gastric bypass surgery. Bowel obstruction is a known complication for patients following the weight-loss surgery.

Dr. Doolittle reportedly misdiagnosed Yates as having back spasms and had her admitted to the hospital for observation. Unfortunately, Yates died from the bowel obstruction the next day, March 11, 2007. She is survived by her husband and an adult son. She was employed as a nurse at a mental health facility.

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A 65-year-old woman, we’ll call her Ms. Doe, underwent a successful elective surgery at a California hospital and was later transferred to a private room. The woman was stable by midnight that day, but three hours later nurses found her unresponsive. A code blue was called and despite resuscitation efforts, Doe’s condition deteriorated. She died of cardiopulmonary arrest. Doe had been retired and was survived by her husband and two adult children.

The family of Doe sued the hospital and several nurses claiming that a malfunctioning medication pump had caused Doe to receive an overdose of morphine. In addition, the lawsuit claimed that an inadequate pulse oximetry alarms prevented the nurses from timely responding to Doe before she became unresponsive. The defendants denied that they had chosen not to attend to Doe’s hypoxia state in a timely fashion. Before trial, the parties settled for $375,000.

In some cases, morphine, which is an extremely potent pain drug, can give rise to severe and often deadly side effects for patients who have an intolerance to this drug.  There are many effective pain medication alternatives to the use of morphine for patients who have a history of harmful side effects.

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On Dec. 29, 2008, Camilla Hayes, 76, came to the emergency room at Rush Oak Park Hospital complaining of abdominal pain. The emergency room doctor, Dr. Joseph DiPiazza, did not order a complete cardiac workup. She was later diagnosed and treated for gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). However, Hayes was in process of being discharged from the hospital after four and a half hours in the ER when she suddenly collapsed and died. She is survived by two adult children. No autopsy was performed and the parties agreed that she most likely died from a sudden cardiac arrest based on her multiple risk factors for cardiac disease, including hypertension, high cholesterol, morbid obesity and a history of smoking.

The family filed a lawsuit against the doctor and his practice, claiming that Dr. DiPiazza was negligent in choosing not to properly evaluate Hayes’ symptoms from a cardiac standpoint, choosing not to diagnose her cardiac condition, choosing not to order cardiac enzyme tests and serial EKGs, and discharging her instead of admitting her to a telemetry floor for observation.

The family also maintained that the hospital nurses did not determine the exact location of Hayes’s burning discomfort at the time of triage and chose not to initiate the nursing standing orders for unexplained chest pain.

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 A 15-month-old child who required 24-hour care as a result of his extreme prematurity was under the care of a home health care nurse.  The nurse’s duties included keeping a watchful eye on the child to make sure he was properly ventilated. On the date of this incident, the child became detached from the ventilator. 

According to the lawsuit, the home health care nurse panicked and called the child’s father.  When the father came to the aid of the child, he began resuscitation efforts.  However, the child suffered cardiac arrest resulting in hypoxic brain damage.  The child is now in a persistent vegetative state. 

The family sued the home health care nurse claiming that she failed to manage the child’s oxygen saturation in a timely fashion, chose not to manage the child’s oxygen saturation, did not timely notice the dislodged ventilator and chose not to resuscitate the child in a timely manner.

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