An emergency room physician recently settled a malpractice claim filed against him for $650,000.00 as a result of his failure to properly diagnose a post-operative infection when presented to him in the emergency department.
The plaintiff had recently undergone foot surgery by a podiatrist, a doctor who specializes in foot surgery. She went to the local emergency oom at her hospital complaining of left calf pain and onset of blisters around her ankle. She was evaluated by the emergency room doctor who drew laboratory values that were reported as suspicious for infection.
The emergency room doctor failed to appreciate the seriousness of the blood work that had been drawn on the Plaintiff and sent her home with instructions to follow up with her podiatrist, foot doctor. The Plaintiff went home and made an appointment to see her podiatrist the next day. She was discovered dead the following morning and her cause of death was determined to be Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (“SIRS”).
At the time of the Plaintiff’s death, she was sixty-six years old and retired. She regularly worked out at a local gym and was active in her church.
Emergency room doctors are very busy and frequently overlook serious signs of infection and other disease processes. If you are being treated in an emergency room at a local hospital, it is important that you ask the emergency room docto all of the questions that you may have concerning what may be the cause of the problems that lead you to the emergency room.