Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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Illinois hospitals are required to have an internal review board that conducts investigations that focus on the quality of patient care. These investigations can be triggered by catastrophic outcomes, unexpected deaths, and also by the suggestion of another hospital employee. The purpose of these investigations is to improve the quality of patient care by identifying any potential abuse or medical negligence and then coming up with ways to prevent similar outcomes in the future.

The Illinois Department of Public Health has recently amended its regulations regarding various components of patient abuse and neglect in order to increase patient safety in hospitals. These new regulations fall under the amendments made to 77 Ill. Adm. Code 250 et seq. and have already gone into effect in Illinois.

One of the most valuable tools for identify patient abuse is hospital employees themselves. Hospital employees are aware of what the appropriate standards are for patient care and are in an unique position to identify when abuse does occur. Therefore, many of the new regulations are meant to clarify the process of reporting patient abuse and neglect and putting protections in place for the “whistleblower” employees.

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Any time a patient undergoes a surgical procedure, doctors warn us of the various risks and complications that could result from the surgery. Yet what duty do physicians have to be prepared to handle the potential complications of a surgical procedure? Are they excused from medical negligence if a patient dies as a result of a known complication of surgery? Or do they have a duty to do everything in their power to try and beat the odds and save the patient?

Take for instance the facts surrounding the Illinois wrongful death lawsuit of Estate of Abraham Pinarkyil v. Resurrection Medical Center, et al., No. 07010009. The case involves the death of a 45 year-old man who died after undergoing surgery to remove a benign tumor in his heart. Even though the man’s tumor was benign, the surgery was necessary because even benign tumors can be life threatening by impairing heart function and blood flow.

The heart tumor was removed at Resurrection Medical Center and immediately following the surgery there were signs of problems. Instead of having improved cardiac function following the removal of his benign tumor, Mr. Pinarkyil began to experience cardiac abnormalities. These abnormal heart symptoms should have alerted the medical staff that he was possibly going into shock.

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Typically, when a patient is placed on an oxygen ventilator it is because they are unable to get adequate oxygen on their own. Therefore, when patients are placed on a ventilator, it is important for hospital staff to appropriately monitor the ventilated patient. In the Illinois medical malpractice lawsuit of Iris Thomas v. Advocate Trinity Hospital, 07 L 8318, the hospital staff failed to maintain adequate ventilation in the decedent, a medical error that led to his death.

The case facts in Thomas involved two year-old Justin Pettway. While at home, the infant Pettway suffered a seizure, after which he was rushed by his family to Trinity Hospital’s emergency room. The emergency room staff seemed to respond quickly to the medical emergency, placing Pettway on anti-seizure medication and intubating him. He was even placed on multiple monitors to assess his pulse and heart rate.

In addition, the hospital began taking measures to try and assess what had caused Pettway’s seizure. The infant was transported to the radiology department for a CT scan of his brain. However, it was during this process that the medical error occurred. At some point after returning to the emergency department from the radiology department, Pettway was found to be unresponsive. The monitors showed no heart rate and the resuscitation efforts were started too late to save the little boy. He died of cardiac arrest.

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A Cook County circuit court returned a $3.76 million verdict in the case of Estate of Michael Hamilton v. Excell Emergency Care, LLC, et al., No. 07 L 6654. The Cook County medical malpractice alleged that the decedent, Michael Hamilton, would still be alive if not for the preventable emergency room errors committed at St. James Hospital.

Hamilton presented to the emergency room at St. James Hospital in Chicago Heights complaining of abdominal pain. Hamilton had been at work in a local paint factory when he began feeling dizzy, sweaty, nauseous, and having severe chest pains. Co-workers reported that he was pounding his chest with his fist and laying down in extreme pain. They called an ambulance and he was rushed to the emergency room.

However, by the time that Hamilton presented to the emergency room his severe pains had diminished substantially. Jose Almeida, M.D., the emergency room physician treating Hamilton, failed to document the details of Hamilton’s symptoms and pain at work. Therefore, rather than investigating the cause of Hamilton’s severe pain, he was simply diagnosed with abdominal pain and sent home with no further instructions.

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When dealing with emergency situations, oftentimes minutes can make a difference in the patient’s outcome. So in the case of Margaret Kaiser-Sperl, a five day delay in diagnosing her impending stroke led to her death. A Cook County medical malpractice lawsuit was brought by her husband against the hospital that failed to timely diagnosis her medical emergency; Richard R. Sperl, Jr., as independent administrator of the Estate of Margaret Consuelo Kaiser-Sperl, deceased v. Advocate Health and Hospitals Corp., et al., No. 09 L 012104.

Ms. Kaiser-Sperl was a 45 year-old nurse and mother of two who presented to the emergency room at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital with complaints of recent balancing problems and hearing loss. Alan Kumar, M.D., the emergency room doctor, incorrectly diagnosed her symptoms as migraine headaches and sent her home. However, a look back at those emergency room records revealed that Ms. Kaiser-Sperl was actually having a transient ischemic attack, which is a precursor to a stroke.

Within five days of her emergency room discharge, Ms. Kaiser-Sperl returned to the emergency room. Her symptoms were similar to her prior visit, but this time she also had dizziness, facial droop, and weakness in her left arm. While this time the emergency room physicians recognized the seriousness of her condition and admitted her, it did not help to prevent her from suffering from a massive stroke. Within a week of the second ER admission, Ms. Kaiser-Sperl was dead as a result of the earlier emergency room error.

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Chicago plaintiff Fahineh Jalalipour received a $1.27 million jury verdict in her Cook County surgical negligence lawsuit, Fahineh Jalalipour v. Farhad Saed, M.D., 07 L 14120. The medical negligence centered around a routine bladder surgery that the 50 year-old elected to undergo in an attempt to correct her urinary incontinence. However, as sometimes happens when medical malpractice is involved, the cure was worse than the original ailment – Ms. Jalalipour was left with painful urination and bleeding, which was only corrected after the plaintiff underwent additional surgeries.

The medical malpractice involved a routine bladder suspension surgery that was meant to correct Ms. Jalalipour’s urinary incontinence by adjusting the location of the bladder in her abdomen and relieving pressure from the pelvic floor. The surgical procedure was performed by Dr. Farhad Saed at Thorek Memorial Hospital, who reported no complications following the surgery. However, in the days following the surgery, Ms. Jalalipour immediately reported finding blood in her urine and experiencing severe pain.

While Dr. Saed dismissed Ms. Jalalipour’s problems as a simple infection, the pain and bleeding did not respond to antibiotics. Eventually, Ms. Jalalipour was forced to consult two additional urologists, both of whom investigated internal causes for her pain. Ms. Jalalipour underwent two different cystoscopies, a diagnostic procedure that investigates the insides of one’s lower urinary tract, which would include the bladder. On her second cystoscopy, which took place over a year after her routine bladder surgery was performed, the urologist discovered the presence of three sutures sewn inside of her bladder.

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Many times medical negligence and errors result in permanent disabilities that patients need to live with for the rest of their lives. However, car accidents can also lead to permanent disabilities, or life-changing medical conditions. The Illinois personal injury lawsuit of Joseph Krzystof v. Jeremy Valencia, 08 L 14321, is a perfect example of when car accidents result in life-changing medical injuries.

The Illinois intersection accident occurred after the defendant, Jeremy Valencia, ran a stop sign. Valencia was on his way home from high school and broadsided Joseph Krzystof’s car, which had the right of way. Initially, while there was obviously a lot of property damage to both vehicles, it appeared that both parties escaped the crash fairly unscathed. However, six weeks after the accident Krzystof was diagnosed with a detached retina.

A retinal detachment occurs when the eye’s retina, the layer of tissue inside the eye that is responsible for sending messages along the optic nerve to the brain, breaks away from its normal position. Because the retina plays such a key role in how our brain interprets visual messages, a retinal detachment can lead to temporary or permanent blindness and is considered a medical emergency.

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A large settlement was reached in a Cook County surgical error lawsuit involving a corrective spinal surgery. The medical malpractice arose as a result of improper monitoring during the patient’s post-operative care and poor communication between the nursing and medical staffs. A settlement of $18.75 million was reached in Francisco Contreras and Sandra Contreras v. Thorek Memorial Hospital, et al., No. 07 L 7771.

The injured party, Francisco Contreras, required a spinal surgery as a result of a work injury he’d sustained about a year before. While working at a Chicago Walgreens store, the 55 year-old injured his neck while removing a printer from a shelf. In an attempt to cure the persistent neck pain that continued to radiated down Contreras left arm, his doctors recommended he undergo cervical disc surgery.

Mr. Contreras presented to Thorek Memorial Hospital for that cervical disc surgery and hopefully cure the pain he’d been experiencing since his work injury. By all accounts the surgery itself went very well and the operative notes indicated that Contreras was able to move both his arms and legs. However, these positive signs did not continue – just forty-five minutes later the medical records indicated that Contreras’s motor functions were deteriorating.

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Topamax is an anticonvulsant medication that is prescribed to treat epilepsy and the associated seizures, or can also be prescribed to prevent migraine headaches. Recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a new warning about some birth defects associated with Topamax. Specifically, the drug warning states that mothers taking Topamax showed higher incidences of cleft lips and cleft palates than mothers not taking Topamax.

This discovery was made by the North American Antiepileptic Drug (NAAED) Pregnancy Registry, whose data showed that 1.4% of infants exposed to Topamax during the first trimester were likely to develop a cleft lip or cleft palate. The prevalence of cleft lips or palate in infants with no exposure to anticonvulsant medications was 0.07%.

In light of this new information, the FDA elevated the Topamax’s pregnancy category from C to D. Under Category D, “There is positive evidence of human fetal risk based on adverse reaction data from investigational or marketing experience or studies in
pregnant women despite potential risks.” Physicians are advised not to prescribe Topamax to pregnant women unless the potential benefits of the drug outweigh the potential risks to the fetus.

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The death of a high-power, Chicago executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center could lead to the Chicago hospital losing its medicare payments. James Tyree, CEO of The Chicago Sun-Times and Mesirow Financial, died from an air embolism that developed after his catheter was removed incorrectly. The medical negligence occurred while Mr. Tyree was being treated for pneumonia at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

The air embolism occurred after air entered the catheter as it was being removed. The air bubble then entered Mr. Tyree’s blood stream. This is problematic because when an air bubble becomes lodged in a vein or artery it can eventually block the flow of blood through that vein or artery. If your blood flow is blocked you are at risk of not getting enough blood to your heart or brain, which is a deadly situation.

This fatal medical error was not only preventable, but involved a skill that was so basic its being done incorrectly could be seen as gross negligence. After considering the facts of Mr. Tyree’s death, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stated that the “deficiencies [which led to Mr. Tyree’s death] were so serious that they constitute an immediate threat to patient health and safety.”

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