10 Most Famous Medical Malpractice Cases In History

October 9, 2010 – The biggest fear of any patient may not be their diagnosis but that they will end up with a medical malpractice case. Medical malpractice, although scary, is bound to happen sometimes. People expect doctors to be perfect but really they are just people. This means that they are going to make mistakes sometimes. You just hope they don’t make any mistakes on you.

The Wrong Limb

A surgeon amputated the wrong limb. The patient received more than $1 million and more safeguards were put in place.

Unwanted Rectal Exam

Brian Persaud suffered a head injury and was taken to the hospital. He sued because after his head was inspected the doctors tried to perform a forced rectal exam. He sued but lost. The exam was intended to check for spinal cord injuries.

Misdirected Sperm

A man and his fiancé wanted a hospital to perform an artificial insemination of his sperm into her vagina. The mix up was that his sperm was actually used to impregnate another woman, a stranger, who wanted an anonymous donor. Two lawsuits were the result.

Diarrhea Treatment Left Her Deaf

That’s right. A woman went to the hospital to be treated for diarrhea and the IV of antibiotics was left in longer than it should have been and the patient lost her hearing.

Healthy Lung Taken Out

Basically, a man went to the hospital and was diagnosed with lung cancer. One of his lungs was taken out. The problem is that he didn’t have lung cancer and the lung was healthy.

Surgeon Sleeping On The Job

A patient went in for a 90 minute liposuction procedure. The procedure lasted 6 hours and the surgeon was described as being impaired and was falling asleep. No one stopped him. He was later fired and a lawsuit is pending.

Waking Up With Serious Burns

Waking up after surgery is a vulnerable experience but imagine waking up with burns you didn’t have when you went under. The patient was there for liver transplant surgery but when he was being transported to surgery disinfectant alcohol on his arm and shoulder caught on fire. He had serious burns.

A Bad Episiotomy

A woman went into early labor so the doctor performed an episiotomy, a procedure that helps with early labor. The doctor didn’t check for another condition, a hole between the anus and the vagina, so the woman passed stool through her vagina.

Involuntary Sex Change

A woman was born possessing indeterminate genitalia. She was raised as a boy which was common practice at the time. When she was 18 she had her appendix taken out and the doctor discovered ovaries and removed them without telling her. She stumbled on the truth of her female identity 30 years later.

A Horrible Vasectomy

A many went in for a vasectomy, a fairly common procedure. The man was in severe pain during the operation even though he had been anesthetized. The operation had to stop because he was in so much pain he was vomiting. Some years after that, his testicles had to be removed because they were causing him intense physical pain. What happened may not be entirely clear but something went horribly wrong.

T. Rheinecker blogs about how to enroll in the best MPH online degree program.

 

 

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