Legal Question in Medical Malpractice in Illinois
Doctors not caring
My husband was hospitalized in March of 2006 with stomach pains. While in the hospital he started having breathing problems. They did a CT Scan and discovered he had pneumonia and they thought he had a cancer spot on his lung. After seeing the supposed cancer spot, they forgot about his stomach pain and started checking the lung area.
One Dr. noticed something else on the xray. His vena cava umbrella had (he had inserted in 1982) had come out of the vein and was no longer in place. That Dr. had to leave town and my husbands primary phys. knew about the umbrella moving and did nothing.
He eventually told my husband that
the reason for his stomach pain was probably due to having a virus and the lung ended up being ok. The following year (2007) my husband had bad stomach and groin pain again. It turned out that the vena cava umbrella had migrated into his small bowel and had to have part of the bowel removed. Shouldn't his primary Doctor have sent him somewhere to have the umbrella issue checked out instead of waiting until it got to the point of going into his small bowel? None of the Dr.'s we dealt with have ever heard of this happening (the umbrella migrating downward)
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Doctors not caring
It is possible that the doctor should have done as you suspected he should have. In order to find out whether the doctor failed to follow the standard of care we must examine your husband's entire medical records from before the 2006 and any records leading to the 2006 visits until the latest records.
The reason for this is that in order to file a claim for medical malpractice, it is necessary that an expert reviews the medical treatment from start to finish and give an affidavit that in his expert opinion the doctor was negligent. Only then your husband will have a claim. Without it, any claim filed will be simply dismissed.
That is also necessary in order to be able to discuss the case with the doctor's and the hospital's insurance company even before a lawsuit has been filed.
My office handles this sort of cases on a regular basis. Once you gather the medical records, I will like to review your case to see whether a claim exists. Contact my office so that we can arrange for you to drop off the records once you have them.
I hope this helps,
Nima Taradji
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