Georgia Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Medical procedures already carry with them dangers and risks, and this is worsened when medical products are defective. Our Atlanta product liability lawyers have been following a story about dialysis solutions and the lawsuits being filed around the country, including those in Georgia. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a recall for the particular solutions in question, Naturalyte Liquid Acid Concentrate and GranuFlo (powder) Acid Concentrate. The products were manufactured, distributed, and used by Fresenius Medical Care during dialysis. The company is the largest operator of dialysis clinics in the U.S. and also manufactures dialysis solutions and equipment. The FDA recall notice reads, "This product may cause serious adverse health consequences, including death.

Lawsuits have been filed in 37 cases in federal courts, including one involving a patient in Georgia. The plaintiffs claim that the aforementioned dialysis products caused the patients to suffer a cardiac arrest, heart attack, or sudden death, either during the dialysis treatment or within 48 hours thereafter. The various lawsuits allege that Fresenius failed to provide warnings to doctors about the importance of monitoring bicarbonate levels among patients during dialysis. The solutions contain an element that transforms into bicarbonate at levels that are often too high, leading to cardiac arrest or sudden death. The lawsuits claim that Fresenius knew as early as 2010 that their GranuFlo patients died at rates six times higher than those occurring with competing products. In 2011, the company clarified to doctors at their own dialysis centers about the problems, but didn't issue any information or instructions outside their centers until March 2012. This led the lawsuits to claim the company knew, or should have known, about these fatal consequences of the dialysis solutions.

The deaths allegedly connected to the products occurred between 2010 and 2012. These cases involve patients from across the age spectrum, from 23 years old to 89 years old. An internal review by Fresenius found that at 667 of their dialysis centers, there were at least 941 cases of patients suffering cardiac arrest during dialysis in 2010 alone. This information is what prompted the FDA recall last year.

A recent study, as reported in the Washington Post, showed that errors in diagnosing patients is the main source of medical malpractice claims. This study, lead by Dr. David Newman-Toker, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Ali Saber Tehrani, looked into 25 years of malpractice payments to discover this fact. The researchers looked into 350,000 medical malpractice claims in which payment was made from 1986 until 2010.

What they mean by diagnostic errors are things like diagnosing appendicitis when the patient has an ectopic pregnancy or diagnosing simple dizziness when the patient is having a brainstem stroke. Often the correct diagnosis is eventually arrived at, but not until the condition is more complicated to treat and has possibly disabled the patient. The study did not delve into why diagnostic errors were so common, but Dr. Newman-Toker said that diagnosis is a difficult and imprecise process and there is often a time lapse between the mistake and when it is discovered, making it also harder to correct in enough time to make a difference. There are also no public reporting requirements for these types of mistakes.

Dr. Newman-Toker said, “Diagnostic errors are the most common, the most costly and the most deadly of all medical errors.They accounted for 29 percent of successful malpractice claims and 35 percent of the total money paid out. Incorrect, missed, or delayed diagnosis also caused 39 percent of malpractice deaths. Other categories of medical mistakes listed were treatment errors and surgical mishaps, the other two largest categories of malpractice claims, and obstetric problems, medication errors, and anesthesia errors.

The Institute of Medicine released a report entitled "Improving Diagnosis in Health Care,which contains some troubling statistics on the rates of misdiagnosis in American medicine. Researchers preparing the report lamented the fact that there have been inadequate studies done on misdiagnosis, so there is not enough information to assess the impact of this type of error on patient outcomes. However, even with the limited data that has become available on diagnostic errors, it is clear that misdiagnosis of medical conditions is a major problem within the American medical care system.

Misdiagnosis can lead to an Atlanta medical malpractice claim. Patients whose conditions are diagnosed incorrectly could experience delays in treatment as their conditions become worse and sometimes incurable. An inaccurate diagnosis could also cause harm to patients who receive the wrong treatment.

An Atlanta misdiagnosis attorney should be consulted when any mistakes in diagnosis are made that cause a condition to worsen or that result in economic and/or non-financial loss to patients.

Victims of medical malpractice who file lawsuits against doctors will often end up dealing with malpractice insurance providers. Unfortunately, these medical malpractice insurers sometimes fail to live up to their obligations. Insurers could offer low settlements and try to deprive Atlanta malpractice victims of compensation they deserve, or could even deny claims which should be paid out. In one recent case, the behavior of the insurers was so egregious the insurance company was ordered to pay plaintiffs $13 million in punitive damages as well as compensation for actual malpractice losses, resulting in a total verdict of more than $14 million.

Victims of malpractice clearly cannot count on insurers to do the right thing and make payments when tremendous losses occur. Victims, however, do have options and can receive significant compensation when juries decide insurers act unfairly after doctors cause harm. An Atlanta birth injury lawyer can provide invaluable legal assistance in cases where medical negligence occurs. Our attorneys can deal with insurers on behalf of patients and can explore all possible legal grounds for maximizing compensation after losses.

Insurer’s Bad Faith Leads to Multi-Million Dollar Verdict in Medical Malpractice Case

Our medical malpractice lawyers have recently discussed several medical malpractice issues on this blog, and we noticed yet another Georgia case that caught our attention. The family of a DeKalb County man was awarded $17 million for the malpractice of a physician's assistant that caused the brain injuries of their son.

What happened to 24-year-old Sheriod Merritt is a tragic story. In 2008, when he was 19-years-old, he was shot in the face by a stray bullet from a drive by shooting outside a Wal-Mart in Lovejoy. He was shot through the cheek and could speak, and his mother said he appeared fine just after the shooting. The wound was determined not life-threatening. Merritt was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital where the doctors told the family he would be okay after surgery, and when he woke up he could be taken home to recover. The young man was apparently very anxious about the surgery and told his father that he loved him before being taken away. When Patrick and Angela Merritt came to pick up their son the next day, he was in a coma. They claim the doctors never told them what happened to Sheriod during the surgery or what went wrong. All they knew was that their son, who was still talking and walking the day before even after being shot, had suffered some kind of brain trauma and could hardly speak and could not walk anymore.

The Merritt's turned to the legal system to try to get answers about their son. The case was tried in the DeKalb County State Court with Judge Wayne Purdom. In their lawsuit, the family alleged that the anesthesiologist, Dr. James Richardson, from Emory University Hospital and a physician's assistant, Richard Nardi, at Grady Hospital, didn't follow proper procedure when Sheriod was waking up after his surgery. The family says a preventable error with his breathing tube caused Sheriod to go without oxygen for seven to eight minutes, causing the brain damage. The hospital contends that Sheriod woke from the anesthesia violently, fighting with medical personnel, at which point he dislodged his own breathing tube. The statement said the medical personnel were only doing their job by acting quickly in order to save Sheriod's life.