Med Mal News

Jim Lederer, MD, Novant Health's Vice President of Clinical Improvement, explained that the risk that any of the 18 exposed patients will develop CJD is “remote,” but said further, “[W]e cannot say there is no risk and therefore it is our obligation to notify patients and provide them with information and support. Our first concern is for our patients who are recovering from surgery and may now need additional support.” Since this event, Novant Health has implemented the use of enhanced sterilization methods for all surgical implements used during brain surgery, not merely for those used on suspected CJD patients.

More Proceedings in $50 Million Birth Injury Case

A Georgia medical malpractice suit seeking $50 million in damages for a brain-damaged baby, Sutton v. Bauer , No. 2009A81944, alleged the child would not have been injured had he been delivered by cesarean section. The case was originally tried in August 2011 and ended with a hung jury. The defendants there included the obstetrician who delivered the injured baby, his practice group, OB-GYN Affiliates, and the hospital, WellStar Health System Inc. When the jurors were queried as they left the courthouse, they told plaintiff attorney Tommy Malone that they would have found WellStar blameless if they had been offered the opportunity to consider just that one defendant, independent of the doctor and his practice group. However, because they were divided as to the doctor's and practice group's liability, they could not come to a consensus. WellStar appealed the judge's decision not to allow a partial verdict but to declare a mistrial instead, but was unsuccessful. Since then, the hospital has settled with the plaintiffs. The remaining defendants were expected to argue in Georgia's Cobb County Court, as they did in the first trial, that a C-section was not clearly indicated, and that the baby's injuries more likely were caused by a pre-birth infection.

NC Surgical Patients Potentially Exposed to Lethal Disease

Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center of Winston-Salem, NC, announced in February that 18 surgical patients at its facility might have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a human form of the fatal brain-wasting disease in cows known as mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)). The possible exposure occurred when instruments used on a patient in mid-January, now confirmed to have CJD, were later used on another 18 neurosurgery patients. Although these implements were sterilized according to normal protocols, hospitals are supposed to use enhanced sterilization techniques when signs of CJD are present, and, according to a Novant Health release, “[t]here were reasons to suspect that this patient might have had CJD. As such, the extra precautions should have been taken, but were not.” See http://bit.ly/1da62Ic.

Jim Lederer, MD, Novant Health's Vice President of Clinical Improvement, explained that the risk that any of the 18 exposed patients will develop CJD is “remote,” but said further, “[W]e cannot say there is no risk and therefore it is our obligation to notify patients and provide them with information and support. Our first concern is for our patients who are recovering from surgery and may now need additional support.” Since this event, Novant Health has implemented the use of enhanced sterilization methods for all surgical implements used during brain surgery, not merely for those used on suspected CJD patients.