With a long history of litigating medical malpractice cases, Berkowitz and Hanna LLC knows that surgical mistakes are not strictly limited to hands-on procedures. Even a verbal miscommunication between a surgeon and his/her team can lead to an egregious error.
Recently the firm learned about a medical malpractice lawsuit based on an alleged doctor’s mistake in Durham, North Carolina, in which North Carolina Specialty Hospitaland Timothy Young, M.D., an ophthalmologist, were alleged to be negligent in administering the wrong drug during a patient’s cataract surgery. The Legal Examiner reports that the patient lost sight in his left eye because he was given a drug that can severely damage eye tissue. Instead, the team was supposed to apply a dye–which has a similar sounding name to the incorrect drug—to his eye. A second surgery to fix the patient’s damaged eye failed.
When the nurse said the name of the drug at two different times during the initial procedure, Young was cited in court as saying he did not hear her. Was there not any attempt to confirm the drug was the right one? Was it just assumed? As this case has been ongoing since 2011, Berkowitz and Hanna LLC will keep watching for the latest news results.
Note: Berkowitz and Hanna LLC did not represent any of the parties in this case.
Photo by Ken Teegardin via Flickr.com
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