It’s not unusual for an infection to occur if someone has kidney stones.
They had less chance of picking that up if they didnt give her a blood test, as the article indicates.
Agreed. But the article states a "raging infection" occurring within 24 hours. What blood test would have been required to determine that?
I suspect it would not have been picked up by routine tests.
Blood test would have been a blood culture,,no resuts would have been back in 24 hrs whether they did it or not. She was septic the next day.
The facts have to be known before malpractice is known.
They had less chance of picking that up if they didnt give her a blood test, as the article indicates.
I'm afraid you might be missing the whole picture. If someone presents to the emergency room with severe flank pain, radiating down their leg or into their groin with a history of pain so severe it makes you vomit, well you need to get either a non-contrasted CT scan or if not available an old fashioned IVP. (you would need a blood test to see kidney function because of the dye used in an IVP)
Now if you have a patient with no fever, no history of chills, isn't immunocompromised, after pain relief has no tachycardia (fast heart beat), abnormal lowering of blood pressure or a return of pain.... then you can dishcarge them depending on the size of the stone and where it's located in the ureter (tube from kidney to bladder). Give them some pain meds, urine strainer, urology follow up and instructions to return for temp more than 100.1 or pain that isn't relieved with meds.
However I need to add something... a doctor doesn't have to get the correct diagnosis but has to do what is the "standard of care" and what a physician with his expertise would do in that situation in order to diagnosis and treat the patient and symptom presentation.
Now do we get blood on every person that walks into the ER to make sure they don't have an infection? Nope. Cause sometimes you don't need a blood test. Sometime even if a blood test shows normal amount of a cell type that is looked for... ya still got an infection. What's funny is that even if you have NO BLOOD in your urine you could have a kidney stone.... and even if you had the same presentation of flank pain and blood in the urine you could have an Aortic Aneurysm.(very bad).
As far as giving them 50 million or 75 million dollars.... sure why not. Now if a doctor orders a blood test on everybody that walks into his office or ER will anybody complain about the cost? Nah... no complaints since it's free, right? So a doctor that tries to use clinical guidelines may not get a blood test to save the patient money and not look like a guy on the take with a piece of profit out of the lab.... He/she might not give antibiotics in order prevent the overuse of meds, but maybe misses a bacterial infection. So he's damned if he does over test and over medicate.... and he's damned if he doesn't .
Before I get slammed/flamed or called an apologist for the miscreants in medicine that practice "double-O" doctors (licensed to kill)... I don't. I think that malpractice attorney's actually provide a service by scaring the cr#p out of any doctor that thinks he can slide on updating his education and skills.
Do they sue the wrong docs... yep sometimes , a lot of the time it's just a fishing expedition with easy money to be made "settling or arbitrating" a case. The real bad cases usually get settled unless someone starts throwing around numbers like 55 or 70 million dollars.
Sounds like she got septic, threw some septic emboli or lost her blood pressure and sloughed off the tissue farthest from her heart... feet, hands, tips of ear, nose etc....
Now about the "mistake" part. If there are any medical freepers scanning this you will see how frustrating this can all be. A friend of mine was in a small ER 40 miles from a trauma center when a trauma code came in. Blunt trauma chest, extraction then cardiac arrest. .... well they scooped him and worked him till they slammed through his doors. He correctly assumes either torn aorta or tamponade... cracked his chest and finds a small rent in the aorta with tamponade.
Guy gets transported to the trauma center 30 minutes after hitting his door, with a full ER. Guy lives, has limp and residual left sided weakness of a leg, but other wise all other systems are a go.
My buddy went through 4 years of depositions, chart review, expert witness testimony and finally right before the trial his malpractice company settle for under 120K. They did the math and figured even if they won it would cost them more. If my friend wanted to fight he would have to pay all the fees if he lost and nothing if he settled. Why the suit... failure to transport and treat in a timely fashion. They found some experts that tracked every minute from the time he hit the door till the calls were made and he was in the ambulance and into the other hospitals OR. They calculated the amount of money he sought, divided up by the time from ER to OR and figured that my buddy was liable for 30 percent of the time. So he owed 30 percent of the suit. Kewl, huh?
He was told by his attorney and another consultant that if he'd of let him die, no suit. Cause blunt chest trauma arrests are universally fatal... almost. But a guy with a limp... is a guy with a limp. He's doing occupational medicine now and has weekends off and no night shifts.... unfortunately for Florida he is now a South Carolina doctor. Unfortunately for South Carolina, he isn't an emergency room doctor anymore.
If the doctors in the hospital hadn't aggressively resuscitated the patient, she'd of died... but instead the intensive care doctors have a live patient without hands or feet. I don't know the particulars of this case but I'm thinking it's going to be sad all around. ..... except for the attorney, of course.