Pain in the Butt

This situation just might have to go down as one of the more amusing medical malpractice cases in a while.  According to today's New York Daily News, six women in New Jersey are recovering after they received buttocks-enhancement injections containing silicone used to caulk bathtubs.  I know it's not funny, but I just can't help but.....or is it can't help butt......

State health officials say the Essex County women apparently underwent cosmetic procedures from a unlicensed providers.  Investigators have not determined if the cases are related.

No arrests have been made.

Hospitals Are Making Patients Sicker, According to New Report

For patients in New York City hospitals the prospect of having surgery on the wrong body part, or receiving doses of the wrong medication may be the last of their worries.  According to an investigative article that appeared in The New York Times yesterday, the incidence of contracting a deadly infection while in the care of the city's healthcare system is a much greater likelihood than anyone imagined.  In fact the incidence of attracting an infection from the air, the staff and other patients in eyeshot of a patient are so high the the chances are better that patients actually end up sicker while in the hospital than they would if they had been treated for their illness at home.

It seems because of the virulent nature of the viruses and bacteria at large in many hospitals there is almost nothing legally a patient can do if they contract an infectious disease after being admitted to a hospital.  I'm afraid that without the scepter of legal fees hanging over it's head, the city will do little to improve this situation any time soon.

A Good News Story About A New York Area Doctor

We read a lot about doctors who don't do their jobs very well and end up paying huge medical malpractice penalties to their patient victims.  

So every once in a while I think it helps to balance out the scales of justice when a New York physician goes above and beyond the call of duty to deliver a superior level of care and service to one of their patients.

The New York Daily News reported the following story today.  All I can say is "bravo" Dr. Roth.  (The following is the verbatim article as it appeared in the Daily News today):

No one knows better how crazy it gets at Maimonides Medical Center than Diana Roth, an obstetrician who delivers babies at the hospital and had her four kids there, too.

Because once, she did both on the same day.

"I had given birth just four hours before when my beeper went off and it was one of my patients in active labor," said Roth, 37, remembering the night in August 2005 when her third child, Josh, was born.

"I had gone through her pregnancy with her and felt obligated to help. Plus, I was already there."

She knew the nurses on the postpartum floor where she was dozing in a private room would never rouse her - especially to go back to work.

Roth had other ideas.

She yanked out her IV and called one of the residents to sneak her a pair of scrubs. At about midnight, she slipped down a staircase to her patient's side.

"I felt fine. I delivered my patient, and went back up to my room to go back to sleep," Roth recounted matter-of-factly.

When Roth's doctor checked her the next morning, Roth confessed to her midnight run.

"You have to be kidding me?" Dr. Carmen Llopiz-Valle recalled telling her patient, er, colleague. "Diana is a very young, healthy, go-getter kind of person and very committed to her patients. She knew what it meant to her patient to be there for her."

The 25-year-old Borough Park mom agreed.

"At the time, I thought it was normal. She was so good to me, not tired, nothing! She was ready only for me," said the mom, who asked to be identified only as Leah. "Once I knew she herself had just given birth, I was amazed."

The funniest part? A few hours later, Roth was asked if she wouldn't mind a roomie. "They wheeled in my patient, Leah!" Roth said, laughing.

How to Find a Good Chiropractor

In New Jersey, 36 cancer patients at a veterans hospital in East Orange were overradiated — and 20 more received substandard treatment — by a medical team that lacked experience in using a machine that generated high-powered beams of radiation. The mistakes, which have not been publicly reported, continued for months because the hospital had no system in place to catch the errors.

I've been on my back for the past couple weeks with a nagging case of sciatica.  My doctor wants me to get an MRI.  After reading this story, I'm having serious second thoughts about having anyone pump radiation into my body.  Which gives me an idea.  The best lawyers in New York can be found by searching on Google.  I think it's time for me to speak to a good chiropractor.  What search phrase should I use.  Let me try...best chiropractors in westchester, ny........

Case Could Present Court With Unique Challenges

In what appears to be a clear case of medical malpractice, the Daily News reported today that detectives are investigating a Queens clinic where a 37-year-old woman was fatally injured while undergoing an abortion.

Alexandra Nuñez began bleeding heavily during the procedure at A1 Medicine, a gynecology clinic in Jackson Heights, on Monday.  One of Nuñez's arteries was inadvertently severed and she went into cardiac arrest.  She was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where she died a short time later.

In a city where incidences of medical malpractice are a common occurrence, this situation  could prove to be anything but common should the family of the deceased decide to sue the clinic.   It would seem that any claim against the clinic might present some unique challenges for the plaintiffs given the volatile nature of the circumstances surrounding Ms. Nunez' death.

I have to wonder whether the plaintiffs'  lawyers will be able to find jurors who will not let the fact that Ms. Nunez was undergoing an abortion at the clinic when the accident occurred interfere with their ability to rule based on the facts of the case only, and not let their own prejudices cloud their judgment.  

I also have to wonder if lawyers for the plaintiff will even be able to find a panel of jurors who can keep an open mind throughout the proceedings.

Nunez own daughter, Davila  insisted that her mother did not believe in abortions. 

Negligent Workers Allowed Back on the Job After Brief 30-day Suspension

The Daily News reported today that the two EMT workers accused of coldly ignoring a dying pregnant woman because they were on a break returned to work Thursday.  

In the same edition of the paper, the News reported that unemployment has risen in New York City to 10.6% in the past month. That means a lot of people are out of work.  Some of them, no doubt, would love to have a full time job right now working for the EMT.

I can't make sense of why the NYPD would give EMTs Jason Green and Melissa Jackson their job's back after simply slapping them with a 30-day suspension for abandoning Eutisha Rennix, the pregnant woman who became ill last month in a local restaurant. 

Green and Jackson are trained medics.  If they care at all about what they do, or people in general, regardless of whether they were sipping coffee together, they should have done everything they could to come to the aid of the ailing woman.  If they don't like their jobs, New York is full of out-of-work people who no doubt would be much better suited to the work. 

Hiring these two negligent workers back to me is tantamount to the New York Daily news hiring a reporter who doesn't like to write, or a fireman who hates climbing ladders.  It makes no sense.

Green only seems to care about one thing.  The News quoted him as saying:  "I'm relieved I still have a job," he said as he hugged a co-worker and playfully swatted another on the shoulder outside Metrotech in downtown Brooklyn. 

"This whole thing's been stressful," said Green. "I'm just hanging in there."

The dispatchers, who still face a criminal probe, were grabbing a bagel at a nearby Au Bon Pain when a worker told them 25-year-old Rennix was having trouble breathing.

Rennix, who was six months pregnant, had collapsed and was in the back of the store.

Jackson called a fellow dispatcher to report the incident but witnesses said she and Green did not try to help Rennix themselves.

The mom and her premature baby both died hours later. Green, 32, and Jackson, 23, denied they left the coffee shop and insisted that they did all they could to help.

The Fire Department has yet to interview Jackson or Green, but Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano said he could not comprehend a member of the FDNY not stopping to help.

"We help, that's what we do - no matter what," Cassano said Thursday. "When you raise your right hand and take that oath, that's what you're pledging to do."

"If you don't want to be the person to help, go find a job somewhere else."

Exactly, Commissioner.