This Makes Me Sick

Docs Flee, Lawyers Slacking, and a Lost Kidney

Eli Lily hid side-effects info, kept pushing schizo drug Read [Wilmington Star News]

Adios cowboys! A third of Wyoming docs plan to flee Read [Casper Star Tribune]

VA and health care behemoth Kaiser pushing docs to web for diagnosis info, options Read [Kansas City Star]

Bad Apples: North Dakota rebuking record number of state's lawyers Read [Bismark Tribune]

Patient gets screwed out of friend's kidney, dies, and CAN'T sue Read [New York Sun]

Searching For Blues

Ah, the land o' Google

Search: Hospital horror stories

Results: Four Chicago filmmakers helping patients avoid their own horrors; 
An ER patient in a Bronx hospital details her stay in a house of horrors;
And the Top 10 secrets your hospital won't tell you.

We've written about some nightmarish stays, here.

Last lil note for the day: Can we tell you how many people find ThisMakesMeSick by searching "ear stapling?" We wrote about it, here. All hail the new weight loss solution.

News Roundup

Extra! Extra!  Docs Say they'll Be in Short Supply Come 2020 Read [BYU NewsNet]

Wisconsin BS? Law: Adult Kids Can't Sue For Malpractice If Parent Dies Read [WTMJ-TV]

Forget Suing Docs, The Mold That Nearly Snuffed Me Was The Builder's Fault Read [Orlando Sun-Sentinel]

Frankenstein Cometh: Grandma Claims Doc Left Bolt in Her Neck Read [Roanoke Times]

Surprise, Surprise: Tort Reform Not Keeping Docs in Land O' Lincoln Read [Courier News]

'Cock' Doc Underfire

Alright, the more appropriate term is "penis doctor." But it still galls us that some cardiologist read a how-to book and began performing delicate surgeries outside his discipline. In this case, "visions of grandeur" became "distorted organs." We'll leave it to the Chicagoist who said it, ah, best:

This morning's Sun-Times ran a story about Dr. Sheldon Burman, the founder of the MSD Clinic, an abattoir of masculinity located in our old Northwest Side childhood stomping grounds. "MSD", by the way, stands for "Male Sexual Dysfunction", although with the rash of malpractice claims filed against Burman (45 and counting), it could just as well stand for "my scary-looking ding-a-ling". Guaranteeing an increase of one-half inch in length and a fifty percent increase in penile thickness, Burman and his crack (smoking?) team essentially helped men change their penis size from "pudding snack cup" to "rusty, dented tuna can". The sheer number of malpractice claims against Burman were enough for state medical officials to start the process of revoking Burman's medical license. Burman still stands by the thouands of procedures he's done since 1981.

We digressed today. We know. We take responsibility. But it's still a liability mess.

FYI: Doc Burman said he had no formal training but taught himself the  knife tricks. Read [UPI]

IS THIS ROUTINE IN MEDICINE? LET US KNOW.

Fearing the Prison Infirmary

Symbionese Liberation Army cohort Kathleen Soliah—nee Sara Jane Olson—who was finally caught in 1999 after living on the run for 23-years, fears falling ill in the Central California Women's Facility where she's doing time. Why? Seems the misfit who rolled with the gang best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst fears "a prison healthcare system that experts say claims one life a week through malpractice or neglect." Really? Seems the LA Times unearthed some nasty tales on that front back in July. Read about it here. Or, just check out the juicy profile of Soliah's life on the trash detail making 24 cents an hour. Read [KTLA-TV] 

New York Hospital Woes

Yikes! The venerable New York Post touches on the spike in complaints against NY hospitals, from maggots found in a patient's breathing tube to a newborn whose skull was fractured. Read

A Doc's Double VIsion

According to prosecutors in a case in Arizona, Dr. Bradley Schwartz  grew to detest  Dr. David Brian Stidham, his former associate. The reason: Schwartz was forced into drug rehab by the Arizona Board of Medical Examiners in the fall of 2002 and he thought Stidham would keep their practice going while he was "gone." He didn't, and started his own practice leaving Schwartz in the cold. What happened next was a rational... he conspired to whack Stidham in October 2004. Recently, he was sentenced to life in prison for this.

So the stage is set for—you guessed it—a malpractice lawsuit. Seems a family is suing him, because he was allegedly flying on drugs when he performed surgery on their teenage son in November 2001. The kid's got double vision now. The doc tried to get the case moved or delayed because he's burned out. No dice. Read [The Arizona Daily Star]

Solid Rebuke… 12 Years Later!

The Rhode Island state medical board has finally found Dr. Aaron R. Sherman, a Warwick OB/GYN, guilty of unprofessional conduct for injecting a young woman with Valium without telling her, causing her to fall unconscious in the examining room. She remained there for a half-hour. It is uncertain whether she was alone or with him in the room. Oh yeah, this occurred in 1994. Better later than…. Read [The Providence Journal]

Anyone Can Be A Physical Therapist

Caryn Dinetz wanted to and all she had to do was lift Karen Levine's licensing information off of a New York State Web site. Then she polished up a resume with Levine’s name, presented the required medical malpractice insurance forms using Levine's policy number and voila. Yikes! Talk about liability nightmare. Read [Newsday]

We Don't Even Know Where to Begin

1) More than a dozen more ear-stapling businesses have been told to shut down by the Mississippi Medical Licensure Board because they aren’t licensed. The small, stainless steel staples are supposed to apply pressure to points that control appetite and cravings for nicotine. Do people sue if they keep eating? Read [Clarion Ledger]

2) This happened in Canada, but we couldn’t let it go. A hospital had to cancel 17 elective surgeries after six doctors were suspended because they were not completing patients’ charts. Oh, yeah, the slackin’ docs had 28 days to take care of this huge liability risk. Read

3) A New Jersey woman with a history of beating her son laid a real swift kick to his neck in 2003. The boy died from internal bleeding and heart failure several hours after being admitted to a hospital. Now, three medical experts say it was Pascack Valley Hospital’s shoddy care--not mom's footwork--that caused the boy’s death. So mom was found guilty of assault instead of murder. Even if the facts are what they are, the whole thing just sickens us. Read [Bergen Record]

Read more news that MakesUsSick here and here. And contact us if you have some news that MakesYouSick.

If One State Won't Take You...

Surgeon Robert Ricketson had been suspending from practicing medicine in Oklahoma and Texas for alleged drug use. He had even admitted to writing fake prescriptions to get drugs. So he set sail for Hawaii and hooked on with the Hilo Medical Center. The honeymoon was short.

Performing a back surgery in 2001, Ricketson discovered that the titanium rods essential to the procedure were missing. Thinking quickly--though the rods could  have been delivered to the hospital in 90 minutes--Ricketson improvised a new rod by cutting the shaft of a stainless steel, medical screwdriver. Ricketson said the patient had already lost too much blood and couldn't risk extending the operation.

A week later the piece broke. Despite three corrective surgeries the man was rendered a bedridden paraplegic and died a few years later. Note: Ricketson didn't have malpractice insurance. In the case, he served as his own attorney. A jury awarded the plaintiff almost $5.6 million.

How do these docs keep finding work? Read [Honolulu Star Bulletin]

UC Irvine Hospital's Diagnosis: Denial

For more than a decade, UCI officials have repeatedly ignored red flags, downplayed serious problems, misrepresented facts and punished or fired people who exposed wrongdoing. Luckily, the hospital's woes keep peppering newspaper headlines and the courts.

"I don't think we're dealing with isolated problems and bad actors only," said new UCI Chancellor Michael V. Drake. "There are times when we have not lived up to our values."

Some recent scandals: 32 patients died awaiting liver transplants because no full-time surgeon was on staff and viable organs were turned down; Three whistle-blowers were paid a total of $900,000 in settlements that required them not to talk about hospital's fertility clinic problems. We wish you good luck, Chancellor. Read [LA Times]

Docs ask why Oregon hospital gets protected from lawsuits

Dr. Harry Harper walked into the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) for back surgery and left in a wheelchair. Not exactly the outcome he was expecting. Lawsuit, perhaps? But he foolishly didn’t realize that OHSU has a $200K tort liability cap set by Oregon law. "You know it would have been nice all the years I was in practice if I never had to pay malpractice premiums," Dr. Harper says. He’s sued sans attorney since most local attorneys avoid cases against OHSU, because “with a $200,000 limit, there's not even any money left for the patient.” Even the Oregon Medical Association’s president chimes in of the strict cap: “That amount is low especially for catastrophic illnesses to kids. Clearly the lifetime care costs of a child with an injury such as that is going to far exceed $200,000."  OHSU says that without the limit, they’d serve fewer patients. Can’t they at least tell patients about the cap before the go under the knife?  WATCH [KATU 2-TV]

Life support for the nation's ERs

Congrats America! Our emergency medicine room system as a whole scored a stellar C - , according to a new study by the American College of Emergency Physicians. A few states are pulling their weight, with California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia nation with overall grades of B. But a dozen states, from Alabama to Washington are riding the D train. The study highlights increased ER overcrowding, declining access to care, soaring liability costs and a poor capacity to deal with public health or terrorist disasters. We note the liability ingredient in this sorry state of affairs, which many link to ER physician shortages, delays in patient care and increased patient transfers aka “dumping.” Still don’t think the crisis affects you? See how your state stacks up.

Doctor changes name after malpractice lawsuits

Dr. Steven Olchowski was once hailed as a maestro of the gastric bypass procedure. But then the lawsuits began. While practicing at North Carolina’s New Hanover Regional Medical Center, he would tell patients he was to perform one type of gastric bypass surgery. But once in the operating room, he actually did a risky short-cut operation--a mini-bypass--instead, resulting in life-threatening complications afterwards. He did give up his license in NC. But he was already in Michigan starting anew. And to cement the move, he changed his name. Out with Olchowski and in with Hawkins. His attorney said he wanted a fresh start. Don't we all. Try doing that pesky medical background check now. Read [WWAY]

Patients 'dumped' from Florida ERs

An increasing shortage of doctors willing to treat emergency patients in Palm Beach County sometimes means dicey treatment options for the injured. And, surprise, surprise, the nation’s liability mess is to blame. Let’s say that a plastic surgeon from Wellington Regional Medical Center refuses to come to the hospital's ER to treat a man with facial injuries from a car accident. The patient waits hours for treatment before he’s “dumped” and sent to another hospital. Why the lack of hand surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, ophthalmologists, plastic surgeons and obstetricians in the area’s ERs? Well, Florida law allows doctors to practice without medical malpractice insurance. And as malpractice insurance rates rise, some do opt to ‘go bare.’ But in Palm Beach County there's no large public hospital at which doctors in the ER have sovereign immunity from lawsuits. So docs practicing there face an increased liability risk. Especially those sans malpractice insurance. They stay home and the lineup grows thin. And the people suffer. Discuss. Read [Palm Beach Post]

Take two of these and sue me in the morning

This might be a first. After a rocky emergency room experience, William Carvelot took his ER doctor’s advice, called a lawyer and is now suing Belleville Memorial Hospital. And the frank doc, too. Back in 2003, Carvelot arrived at the ER with chest pain and difficulty breathing. He went into ventricular fibrillation and the staff tried to resuscitate him with CPR and defibrillation. No dice: the machine didn’t work. Eventually, he was revived and a bypass was performed. But since the surgery, he has suffered memory loss and various health problems that he attributes partly to the broken defibrillator. He’s filed a lawsuit and claims that his family was told after surgery by the ER doc that the machine was busted and he was without oxygen for a period of time and he should see an attorney. Now that’s fessing up. But we wonder if Carvelot and the hospital were able to sit down before he brought a lawsuit, if indeed the doctor took responsibility. If not, why not?  Read [The Madison Record]

Malpractice went unchecked and crossed the Pacific

Dr. Jayant M. Patel made headlines earlier this year when an inquiry linked 87 patient deaths at a  hospital in Queensland, Australia to his care. But these weren’t the first murky waters for Dr. Patel. Take a trip back to Oregon where he practiced during the 1980s and 90s and had eight malpractice or wrongful death lawsuits brought against him. Four patients died. Side note: he garnered the "Distinguished Physician of the Year" from fellow doctors at Kaiser Permanente Northwest. But back to the story. The latest disturbing fact: his troubles went undetected by the Oregon's physicians oversight system.  The safety net that required malpractice insurers to report any claims they received. Medical experts would sift through the claims and then investigate if they suspected negligence or detected a pattern of incompetence. But the two state agencies responsible for collecting the reports and enforcing the law paid scant attention to compliance during the 1990s. When they got their act together, the state’s major insurers and health systems dragged their feet to comply. Ugh! Read [The Oregonian]

Ma'am, we go by the book

When a doctor or a hospital expresses regret and takes responsibility for an error, they often can stave off lengthy legal proceedings. But when they take the opposite tack, well, contention seems to breed. Angela Easterling of Jackson, Mississippi filed a lawsuit in 2004 alleging that the University of Mississippi Medical Center gave her the wrong baby to bury in a grave intended for her daughter who died shortly after birth. UMC’s response: they want the lawsuit dismissed because state law required Easterling to exhaust all administrative remedies before filing the lawsuit. Ah, technicalities. The Mississippi Supreme Court will now rule on the case. We’ll keep you posted. Read [The Sun Herald]

Risks known, but CT scans on the rise

In 2002 the National Caner Institute warned of heightened cancer-causing, radiation risks from taking CT scans of children. According to a new study, the following year one West Virginia hospital actually TRIPLED (!) the number of CT scans performed even though roughly the same number of kids undergoing treatment for epilepsy came through the ER with acute seizures. Some MDs at the hospital see it as a result of liability fears. For others, it’s nervous parents demanding the procedure. It is probably a combination of the two. Regardless, improving patients and MDs understanding of when to seek a CT scan would help everyone involved. Especially the children. Read [MedPage Today]

Hospital turns a deaf ear on charity work

Dr. Allen Rosen met Lisbeth Rodriguez while in the Dominican Republic volunteering with Healing the Children. A fire had left her severely disfigured and after five surgeries, getting a new ear was a final hurdle. "I remember Liz as a little girl," Rosen said. "Now, she's a teenager and she wants the things any teenager has. She'd like an ear. It's not asking for much." Or is it? Anonymous donors flew her up to New Jersey for the procedure. But the hospital turned down Dr. Rosen's request to do the ear surgery there, even though Dr. Rosen had performed surgeries there for, oh, ten years. The company line: "They had done enough charity work this year." Luckily, Dr. Rosen said screw it and did the surgery anyway at a private practice. Hippocrates is nodding somewhere. Read [Montclair Times]

Woman loses doctor when husband puts her in nursing home

It was a sad day when Howard Shirley had to put his wife Gloria into a nursing home. But her Alzheimer's was worsening and he couldn’t care for her anymore. Then he was hit with another blow: a soothing form letter from Eastern Carolina Internal Medicine said her longtime doctor wouldn't treat her at the home “due to the rising cost of malpractice insurance and the practice of nursing homes limiting their own liability by continually contacting patients' medical-care providers.” Shirley replied, "It just turned my stomach to think they would do such a thing." They did. Read on [New Bern Sun Journal]

Hospital now won’t treat patients they operated on with tools washed in elevator hydraulic fluid

In late 2004, it was discovered that the surgical instruments at two hospitals in North Carolina were washed with hydraulic fluid used in elevators rather than with normal cleaning solution. Fast forward and some patients have been complaining of a mysterious ailments. The hospitals have agreed to provide a "consultation," but they won't treat them. An outside doctor must refer the afflicted for treatment to either hospital. But the unaffiliated docs are refusing to see them, too. Liability fears? Bewilderment? No dice. Nothing like a tasty dose of tact. Read [WTVD Raleigh-Durham]

Hospital screams liability and says nurses aren’t legitimate

When St. James Healthcare instituted a new requirement that a doctor must sign off when a nurse orders diagnostic tests, such as MRI's, some patients from a clinic run by nurses got angry. And they picketed at the hospital. The hospital says the decree protects them from liability. Disgusted patients say it's a liability smokescreen and they are being told where to be treated.  Dr. Jesse Cole, chairman of St. James' radiology/pathology section, said, "I do not believe that a nurse practitioner... has the training, education or experience to independently act on my consults,'' Cole said.  Maybe Cole didn't realize nurse practitioners hold master's degrees in nursing and by law can examine, diagnose and treat patients and write prescriptions. Read [Helena Independent Record]

Legal Lotto: The law firm go-and-get-it award

We mentioned the liability circus in North Carolina where patients at Duke Hospitals were operated on patients with surgical instruments washed in elevator hydraulic fluid. While doing some shrewd follow-up, we searched for "elevator hydraulic fluid" on Google. Savvy, we know. To our surprise, the very first listing was an ad for HensonFuerst personal injury lawyers soliciting clients affected by the hospital mishap. Now that's some legal rainmaking. Though the web-savvy elevator repairman might be a little confused. Bonus Legal Lotto: check out the commerical on the firm's website. The announcer beckons: "If you've received a letter from Duke..."

I once was a surgeon, but now my practice is dead.