Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice

Informed consent in medical situations ensures that a patient is aware of the risks associated with their upcoming medical procedure. This information is disclosed beforehand to serve two purposes: First, it gives the patient the information to make an educated decision on whether to go through with the procedure. Second, it gives the doctor legal protection against lawsuits from patients when those complications or issues the patient was warned could happen actually happen. This was the case for a Shreveport dentist who needed an excellent attorney after complications arose after a patient received a dental implant.

Wanda Magee sought treatment from dentist Dr. Charles Williams for a number of abscesses in 2008. In response, Dr. Williams removed two molars and advised Ms. Magee that in the future she may need up to three dental implants. In 2010, Ms. Magee returned with a request to receive the dental implants because she was having trouble eating. Dr. Williams discussed the implant procedure. Then, Ms. Magee underwent a CT scan to determine the proper place for implantation. Ms. Magee signed the treatment plan, which informed her she may need up to three implants and possibly a bone graft. The procedure was performed in February 2010, and only one implant was required.

Later that month, Ms. Magee returned with pain and nausea. Dr. Williams proposed “exposing” the implant to get a better sense of how the implant was doing. Prior to the procedure, Dr. Williams warned her of the risks with the procedure and Ms. Magee gave him oral consent to proceed but did not give her consent in writing. In regards to consent, Ms. Magee later testified that she wanted to keep the implant and wanted Dr. Williams to fix “whatever was wrong.” Dr. Williams cut the area and found that everything was holding up well. A CT scan confirmed that the implant was stable and Dr. Williams ordered Ms. Magee to take antibiotics and come back in one week. Ms. Magee did not return until June 2010, with complaints of an abscess in the affected area.

Perhaps one of the biggest fears when going under anesthesia for a surgery is not waking up when the procedure is over. For a Louisiana man, this fear was realized when a trip to the emergency room for stomach pain resulted in him being woken up from an opiate overdose. So what happens when your doctor gives you an overdose of a medicine?

Donald Ray Seaux, Sr. went to Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center in July 2002 when he began experiencing stomach pain and vomiting. The doctor diagnosed him with a dysfunctional gallbladder and scheduled surgery to remove his gallbladder. When it came time for him to have surgery, his surgeon, Dr. Juan Paredes, chose to perform an “open cholecystectomy,” which is an invasive surgery requiring a large incision across the abdomen. In choosing this option, Dr. Paredes determined that the less-invasive laparoscopic surgery was not appropriate for Mr. Seaux.

Because the surgery chosen was more serious and would likely be more painful to recover from, the hospital anesthesiologist utilized a patient-controlled analgesic morphine pump (PCA), which was a device that delivered pain medication in timed doses. Two days after he entered the hospital and had the surgery, Mr. Seaux was found unresponsive, and was given the drug Narcan, which reverses opiates in the body. Mr. Seaux and his wife state that he was injured as a result of the overdose of morphine from the PCA.

The emergency room is supposed to provide lifesaving care, quickly, to those who need it the most. No one wants to wait around in the emergency room, especially when their life is in danger. Nonetheless, sometimes emergency rooms simply cannot operate as quickly as they should. In a lawsuit against Savoy Medical Center in Mamou, Mitch Benson challenged delays in critical care in emergency rooms answering the question: can you sue an emergency room for acting too slowly?

Mr. Benson was doing yardwork with his neighbor on October 21, 2017 when he began to suffer from chest pain. In response to his pain, Mr. Benson was then taken to the ER at Savoy Medical Center in Mamou. After arriving at 4:05pm, Mr. Benson was examined by Dr. Clifford Godfrey who confirmed that Mr. Benson had suffered a heart attack and as a result his right coronary artery was 100% blocked. At 5pm, Dr. Godfrey consulted the hospital’s interventional cardiologist, Dr. Charles Monier, who instructed Dr. Godfrey to go ahead and implement a thrombolytic agent that could possibly dissolve the clot. Dr. Monier was not an employee of Savoy Medical Center, but he was the director of Savoy’s catheterization laboratory. Dr. Monier also informed Dr. Godfrey that he would know within 20-25 minutes if the thrombolytic therapy was successful, however, if the therapy was not successful Dr. Godfrey would have to transfer Mr. Benson to a different hospital that had a cath lab open because Savoy’s was closed on the day of Mr. Benson’s procedure. Unfortunately, the thrombolytic therapy failed and at 7:02pm Savoy called Arcadian Ambulance to take Mr. Benson to the Heart Hospital of Louisiana where a cath procedure was successfully completed at 10:31pm that evening. Thankfully, Mr. Benson survived the heart attack. 

Following this incident, Mr. Benson filed suit against Savoy, Dr. Godfrey (as an employee of Savoy), and Dr. Monier. Once litigation began, Dr. Godfrey was shown to not have been employed by Savoy at the time. Moreover, Mr. Benson settled his claim against Savoy for less than $100,000 dismissing Savoy from the litigation. However, under the Louisiana Medical Malpractice Act Mr. Benson has the right to proceed litigation against the Louisiana Patient’s Fund Oversight Board (PCF) for damages. In this litigation, Mr. Benson asserted a claim against PCF damages in excess of $100,000 caused by Savoy’s negligence.