Poor Decisions and Confusion Lead to Finger Pointing
Posted in Medical Malpractice on May 16, 2014
Ohio medical malpractice attorney Jay Kelley recalls a case in which a woman who chose a simple outpatient procedure to avoid a long hospitalization, but poor communication by the medical team led to a horrible outcome.
Often in medical malpractice cases, the two sides of the claim do not see eye to eye. Their side does not agree that they caused your injury and you obviously agree that they did cause harm.
Even worse is when separate people on their side alone don’t agree. With lots of medical malpractice cases, we may be facing an issue in which more than one person can be involved in your case.
Who Is To Blame?
For example, in a surgery situation, you will not only have been with the surgeon but an anesthesiologist and at least one nurse. There could also be aftercare staff who assisted in the following surgery. Finding the truth in your situation can then become very difficult. No one wants to be the one blamed for an injury, even if it’s only an accident. This can lead to a lot of confusion which was the case for one of our clients.
Post-Surgery Outcomes
She came out of surgery quite well. However, during the aftercare, she was given a medication that was completely wrong for her. The drug worked against the pain in her body and when they gave her pain medication after surgery, it failed to stop the pain. They tried even more drugs and this caused her serious respiratory troubles. The contents of her stomach began to fill her lungs and she ultimately aspirated.
Proving Medical Negligence
This all began because there wasn’t a clear course of action in the beginning. She was given the wrong medication and then the resulting medication she needed for after surgery developed into this horrible issue. But to top all of that, was how the people in the room began to blame each other when we’re trying to get to the truth. They told different stories and blamed each other and all the while our client was the one who suffered.
We face these types of challenges each time we take on a lawsuit. Sometimes cases are solved easily through medical records and sometimes it takes a little bit more digging through testimonials and depositions to get to the truth. But we fight through to help all of our clients get the best possible outcome for their families.
To learn more about medical malpractice law, I encourage you to watch the video above and to explore our educational website at https://www.elkandelk.com. If you have legal questions, please call us at 1-800-ELK-OHIO. I welcome your call.