Justia Lawyer Rating for Robert D. Kreisman

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The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago reversed a district court jury verdict on the grounds that the lower court did not separate the damages for a husband and wife on plaintiffs’ jury verdict forms. Based on the lack of separate jury verdict forms, a new trial was ordered in Happel v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., No. 07-2264.

Happel is an Illinois prescription error case filed by a husband and wife, Kent and Heidi Happel, against a Wal-Mart pharmacy that filled a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory prescription for the plaintiff wife even though it was aware she was allergic to it. As a result of taking the medication, Heidi Happel went into anaphylactic shock. She required emergent hospitalization and ventilation as a result of the Illinois prescription error. She continues to suffer from memory loss, incontinence, seizures, nightmares, and depression.

The Illinois prescription error claim alleged that the pharmacy was aware of plaintiff’s drug allergy. The Wal-Mart pharmacist had been warned about Heidi’s allergy and actually received an electronic alert that the drug was contraindicated for her. In addition, every time Heidi filled her past prescriptions at this pharmacy she advised the pharmacist of her allergy, which was something her husband, Kent, also did when he filled the prescription at issue in this case. However, despite these warnings the pharmacist went ahead and filled the prescription, which in turn caused Heidi’s injuries.

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Decisions made during labor and delivery can change your life forever. For example, your baby’s heart rate may drop during labor, which is often a sign of distress. The way your doctor and nurses respond to this sign directly impacts the final result. If they respond right away and everything goes smoothly then chances are you will leave the delivery room with a healthy baby. But if the medical team does not respond and fails to appreciate the gravity of the situation, then you might have a drastically different outcome.

Unfortunately, Illinois birth injury attorneys only hear about the second outcome, when things do not go well and some form of Illinois medical malpractice occurs during labor and delivery. And because of the nature of these cases, birth injury lawsuits are oftentimes the most heartbreaking of any type of medical malpractice.

Consider a recent Illinois birth injury case against a nurse midwife, a sponsoring obstetrician, and a Chicago-area hospital that was recently settled with the now 13 year-old boy’s family. The boy sustained a brain injury as a result of hypoxia (low noxygen levels) at birth which resulted in cerebral palsy.

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In an effort to find new ways to stop tumors from growing, scientists are researching ways to develop drugs that will stop blood vessels from growing. The first step to developing these complex drugs is to identify the human genes that are essential for blood vessel growth, something that researchers at the University of Austin were able to do by using the new branch of biology known as deep homology.

The study’s results, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed that these scientists were able to identify five different human genes that were essential for blood vessel growth. The hope is that by developing a drug that would halt these genes from working we would have a new tool in the fight against cancer.

And while the results of the study are remarkable, what is perhaps even more amazing is the way these scientists isolated these human genes. The researchers first identified the blood vessel growing genes by discovering that the same genes work at building cell walls in yeast. The same group of scientists is responsible for finding the genes associated with deafness by studying plants and the genes associated with breast cancer by studying nematode worms.

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Epidural steroid injections are becoming an increasingly common method to relieve chronic pain. While the quick, outpatient procedure does have some possible risks, these are considered relatively rare for an invasive procedure. However, a recent Cook County medical malpractice case illustrates how medical negligence can drastically change a patient’s outcome even in a relatively minor procedure.

The Illinois wrongful death case involved an allegedly improperly placed needle during an epidural steroid injection which led to the patient’s cardiopulmonary arrest and death. At trial, the decedent’s estate argued that the anesthesiologist not only puncture the membrane lining which covers the spinal cord, but also failed to administer the lidocaine into the subdural space over the spinal cord. The combination of these two anesthesiology errors led to the disastrous outcome for this Illinois woman.

The Illinios medical malpractice was not limited to the incorrect procedure, but continued to occur. The decedent’s estate further argued that the woman might have survived if she had been properly intubated when she was being resuscitated. The estate alleged that during the resuscitation efforts that an endotracheal tube was placed in her esophagus instead of where it needed to be, in her trachea.

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Even those of us who know little about cancer know that the earlier your cancer is diagnosed the better your chances. So if this is common knowledge then we would expect that it would be almost a rule in the medical community: rule out cancer whenever possible in order to insure the best outcome possible. Yet all too often we hear stories about patients whose cancer was either misdiagnosed as something else or undiagnosed all together. When the misdiagnosis of cancer leads to a far worse outcome for the cancer patient there is often a case of medical malpractice.

Consider the case of a recent Illinois wrongful death settlement that was approved by a Cook County judge. The widow received $1.59 million from her deceased husband’s treating urologist and his physician group after he failed to diagnose her husband’s bladder cancer in a timely manner. The plaintiff-decedent’s undiagnosed cancer spread over a two-year period and was the ultimate cause of his death.

The facts of the Illinois wrongful death case are as follows. Over the span of two years the man presented to his urologist for CT scans of his abdomen and pelvis. The scans showed two enlarged lymph nodes, which can be a sign that cancer has metastasized to other areas of the body. However, the urologist took no action to investigate the enlarged lymph nodes for cancer.

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Last Friday, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston hosted a symposium for patients diagnosed with Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST) and their families. The all-day event, “Living with GIST”, was not only informative for GIST patients, but was also a celebration. The event marked the ten-year anniversary of finding a successful treatment for GIST.

GIST is a rare type of cancer that affects the body’s digestive tract and its nearby abdominal structures. Unlike the majority of cancers, which are carcinomas, GIST tumors are sarcomas and do not respond to chemotherapy or radiation therapy. As Dr. George Demetri explained to the audience, prior to the development of effective treatments, GIST tumors were surgically removed until it was no longer clinically effective to do so. The development of molecular targeted therapy, such as Imatinib (Gleevec) and Sunitinib (Sutent), changed the prognosis for GIST patients, bringing hope where there had been none.

Dr. Demetri and his colleagues shared the joy of the early days of the Imatinib clinical trials, when they saw the previously untreatable cancer tumors shrinking and stabilizing after short trials of drug therapy. The enthusiasm of Dr. Demetri and his colleagues, combined with the stories of hard work and barriers overcome, spoke to the amazing accomplishments of these medical professionals.

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H.R. 3962, also referred to as the Health Care Reform Bill, promises “To provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans and reduce the growth in health care spending, and for other purposes.” However, at 2,000 pages, the Health Care Reform Bill is a very lengthy document. Over the next five to ten years the Health Care Reform Bill will change the way Americans receive healthcare so it is important for all U.S. and Illinois residents to understand this bill.

This post will summarize the key issues involved in the Health Care Reform Bill rather than how the Healthcare Reform Act impacts Illinois residents. Basically, the Health Care Reform Bill deals with the issues of community rating in health insurance markets, employer mandates to offer health insurance, imposing a tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans, and health insurance market competition.

The purpose of establishing community rating in health insurance markets is so that people with pre-existing conditions can gain access to affordable health insurance. Currently these people, who some would argue are the ones who need health insurance the most, are subject to higher rates and premiums on health insurance. These increased premiums were imposed by health insurance companies based on the logic that people with pre-existing conditions are more likely to see doctors than those without. Under a community rating plan, insurance companies would not be prohibited from charging higher health insurance premiums for people with pre-existing conditions and would be required to provide insurance to anyone who desires it.

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A recent appeal in an Illinois wrongful death case begs the question of what constitutes an appropriate monetary award following a wrongful death or Illinois medical negligence. When Illinois medical negligence has occurred and changed the course of someone’s life forever, what is the price we put on that negligence? This is something Chicago medical malpractice attorneys struggle with and even when you get a sizable verdict, it is no replacement for the damage that has been done. Dobyns v. Chung, M.D. and Sparta Community Hospital, No. 5-07-0568.
The Illinois wrongful death case was brought by the decedent’s husband against a Randolph County hospital following the death of his wife. The plaintiff alleged that during the course of treating his wife for back pain syndrome that the defendant doctor had prescribed an inappropriately high amount of medications, which led to her wrongful death.

The defendant doctor testified at the Illinois trial that he had in fact prescribed her numerous medications during the two and a half years he treated her. The decedent had previously been diagnosed with a bulging disc in her back and had a history of pain in her back, leg and abdomen since 1992. However, despite the numerous narcotic medications the doctor prescribed, she continued to suffer pain in her back, abdomen, hip and knees. The doctor’s testimony stated that during the several years he treated the decedent that he never saw any sign of over-medication.

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Yesterday, President Obama signed into law the house bill overhauling the United States’ healthcare system. Illinois’ Director of the State’s Department of Insurance will be at the center of overseeing changes that will affect Illinois citizens through the new bill, most of which involve insurance premium rates and eligibility.

One of the first changes that will affect Illinois residents is that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services now has the ability to review and challenge any unreasonable health insurance rate increase. For example, the insurance hikes like those proposed by Anthem BlueCross in California this past February of rate increase of up to 39% would definitely raise a red flag under the new Healthcare Reform Act.

While Illinois did require insurance companies to report any increases to premiums within the local market, the Illinois Department of Insurance did not have the authority to approve or deny rate changes. Likewise, in small-employer markets the Department of Insurance did not have any authority to authorize rate changes, nor was it automatically given any information about rate increases or premiums charged to individual companies. But now, with the new healthcare laws, Illinois’ Department of Insurance will receive reports on rate increases and promises to examine and challenge any unreasonable insurance rate increase.

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A recent Cook County jury awarded a positive verdict to a 20 year-old man for severe brain damage that he sustained as a result of a Cook County birth injury. Given that a plaintiff has 8 years from the date of injury to file an Illinois birth injury claim, typically we see these lawsuits filed and settled well before the injured child reaches adulthood.
And while the age of the injured child at the time of the Cook County verdict might be unusual for a Cook County birth injury lawsuit, the case facts are fairly typical of an Illinois birth injury.

The Illinois birth injury lawsuit was brought by the plaintiff’s mother, who claimed that her son was born with severe brain damage as a result of negligence on behalf of Cook County Hospital. The plaintiff’s defense rested on claims that a delay on behalf of the hospital staff in delivering the baby was the cause of his subsequent brain damage.

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