Medical Malpractice / Delayed Diagnosis

10/26/2001 - Confidential

Anonymous Plaintiff vs. Anonymous Hospital and Surgeon, State Court of Fulton County, Georgia. Our client underwent laparoscopic surgery with cold knife conization or “band aid” surgery to diagnose the cause of continuing pelvic pain. Post surgery, she was admitted for a 24-hour inpatient observation period with a complaint of significant abdominal pain. Less than 24 hours after discharge, she presented to the emergency room complaining of fever, vomiting, nausea and a mass in her umbilical area.

Over the next two days, several interns and resident physicians, none of whom entertained the possibility that she had a bowel injury from her prior laparoscopic surgery, saw her. The delay in diagnosis caused a portion of her bowel to die. She underwent surgery to remove the dying bowel, became grossly infected inside her abdomen, became septic, developed adult respiratory distress syndrome, wound up on a respirator and remained in the hospital for five months. Upon her discharge, she had a hole in her abdomen that required five major operations to close.