Miami Injury Attorney Blog

Medical malpractice in South Florida often results in doctors having to face penalties from their medical associations. Last week, the Florida Board of Medicine levied a $5,000 fine on a Coral Springs surgeon Bernard Zaragoza for removing a patient's healthy kidney instead of his gallbladder during an operation in 2007. The surgery took place in Broward county's Northwest Medical Center, and the patient died three weeks later because of heart failure. While the board found that the doctor was not being careless or inept, it could not dismiss the case because a state hearing officer issued a ruling that said removal of a kidney is not a complication of gallbladder surgery, as the doctor's attorney had argued. The 83-year-old patient had an unusual anatomy - his kidney was located where his gallbladder should have been.

A Northwest Medical Center administrator was forced to report the wrong-organ removal to the Agency for Health Care Administration, a requirement for serious errors. The AHCA then notified the Department of Health.

Continue reading "Broward Surgeon Fined for Removing Healthy Kidney Instead of Gallbladder" »

Last month, the Miami medical malpractice attorneys of Gamba & Lombana filed a lawsuit against the University of Miami on behalf of a victim of alleged hospital negligence. The lawsuit stated that University of Miami doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital/University of Miami Medical Center failed to give proper post-operative care to Pablo Portieles. Portieles, who initially was treated for a gunshot wound, was placed in a post-operative care unit where his deteriorating condition, including an injured spleen, went unrecognized and untreated by physicians. This led to Portieles to go into a cardio-pulmonary arrest causing permanent brain damage. He is currently in a minimally conscious state and is residing at a rehabilitative facility where he remains bedridden and unable to speak, walk, eat or perform any daily living activities.

The medical negligence lawsuit names the University of Miami, various physicians, and the Public Health Trust of Miami-Dade County, the governing body of Jackson Memorial Hospital. Damages are sought for Portieles' injuries and for the past and future suffering of his wife.

Continue reading "South Florida Medical Malpractice Attorneys File Lawsuit Against University of Miami on Behalf of Comatose Patient" »

After enduring nearly 10 years of permanent pain, a crippled arm, a limp and a 4-inch fluid-filled cavity in her spinal cord, Kathleen Ramey and her husband were awarded $36 million last week by a Palm Beach Circuit Court jury. In 2000, Ramey went to West Palm Beach pain doctor Andrew Weiss because she suffered from chronic neck pain that resulted from a car accident. Weiss injected a steroid directly into her spinal cord instead of the epidural space - causing irreversible damage. Ramey and her husband subsequently filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the doctor. The Deerfield Beach couple now must battle Weiss' insurance company for the money. Weiss, who lost his medical license but faced no criminal charges in connection with the incident, is serving a 12-year sentence in federal prison for the illegal sale of pain medication.

A victim of medical malpractice can have their lives ruined as in the case with Ramey. She was a stay-at-home mother who at the time of incident did not qualify for Social Security disability benefits. The tragedy put a lot of strain on her family emotionally and financially as medical expenses started to mount.

Medical negligence takes a toll not only on the victim but also on his or her family. The personal injury attorneys of Gamba & Lombana feel victims who are affected by the negligence of those in the healthcare profession need to be justly compensated so that they may live normal lives.

Continue reading "West Palm Beach Jury Awards $36 Million to Victim of Medical Malpractice" »

Former Miami Dolphins wide receiver O.J. McDuffie was awarded $11.5 million by a Miami-Dade County jury after it was determined that an improperly handled injury ended his professional career. McDuffie, who calls South Florida home, filed a professional malpractice suit against former team physician John Uribe after the doctor allegedly told McDuffie he could play even though MRIs showed severe tendon damage to McDuffie's big toe. The jury awarded $10 million for lost earnings and $1.5 million for anguish. The nine-year veteran was first injured in 1999.

With more than 30 years of experience handling medical and professional malpractice cases, the attorneys of Gamba & Lombana have seen many instances where physicians have misdiagnosed or erroneously advised patients. It is important that patients seek a second, and even a third, medical opinion before engaging in treatments or operations that may cause more harm than good. A doctor who reviews a case with a fresh set of eyes may see things missed by the original physician, potentially saving the patient from unnecessary pain and anguish. Patients should also do as much research as possible on their ailment, ask as many questions as possible (no question is too small), and if possible, take a relative or trusted friend to all consultations.

Continue reading "Former Miami Dolphin Awarded $11.5 million in Malpractice Suit" »

Last week, actor Dennis Quaid released his documentary called "Chasing Zero: Winning the War on Healthcare Harm," which aired in homes across South Florida and the country on the Discovery Channel. Quaid, whose newborn twins nearly died as a result of medical malpractice at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, has set out to raise awareness of problems America faces with medical errors. His twins were accidentally given an overdose of the blood thinner heparin. He has described himself as the "front man" for this campaign and believes that implementing safe practices can result in less medical errors and safer patients. Quaid believes accountability, like that faced by the aviation industry when accidents happen, may help shed light on the estimated 200,000 avoidable medical-error deaths that occur each year.

The medical malpractice attorneys at Gamba & Lombana have seen dozens of cases involving medical errors at hospitals across Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. One case, in Hillsborough County at the H. Lee Moffit Cancer Center & Research Institute, involved a patient who allegedly received excessive amounts of radiation treatment due to an improperly calibrated machine. That case received local media attention, but unfortunately many don't. Many patients suffer from the negligence of hospitals, but the general public never learns of these mistakes. We applaud Mr. Quaid for his efforts to raise awareness on medical errors through this documentary and for his fight to improve patient safety.

Continue reading "Actor Dennis Quaid releases "medical mistakes" documentary in South Florida and across country" »

Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the new approach that hospitals across the country, including in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, are taking to avert errors. Such errors are all too common according to the Miami medical malpractice attorneys of Gamba & Lombana.

Statistics provided by the Food and Drug Administration reveal that "errors made by doctors, nurses and other medical caregivers cause 44,000 to 98,000 deaths a year. Hospital infections, take another 100,000 lives. And mistakes involving medications injure 1.3 million patients annually in the United States."

With the help from the National Quality Forum (a government-advisory body that sets safety standards for hospitals), some hospitals are beginning to rethink the way they manage nurses and doctors who have made unintentional errors. Instead of treating them like criminals, they are handling them more like traumatized patients who require care - and then involving them in the administration's investigation of what went wrong. The reasoning is that a hospital can learn from a staffer's mistake so that the same error does not happen again.

Four years ago, a nurse mistook a bag of epidural painkiller for penicillin and hooked it up to an IV line that pumped the painkiller into the bloodstream of a 16-year-old mother-to-be as she was giving birth. The patient died and the nurse was fired. The nurse later faced criminal charges brought on by the state. A study of this case, led by researchers from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, revealed that system flaws at the hospital may have contributed to the nurse's mistake. Criminal charges against the nurse were later amended to two misdemeanor counts after a plea agreement.

The WSJ article found that hospital administrators are looking for ways to address risky behavior of health care practitioners before it leads to serious consequences for patients.

Continue reading "Hospitals in South Florida and across the country reexamine approach in hospital errors" »

A lawsuit was filed in the case of the death by suicide of a Broward 30-year-old man whose family alleges became addicted to painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs that were supplied in excessive quantities by a Fort Lauderdale doctor and his pain clinic.

The lawsuit alleges that Dr. Michael Lazzopina of the Fort Lauderdale Pain Relief Center turned his patient, Benjamin Eiseman, into a drug addict with prescriptions for a constant flow of addictive painkillers and anxiety drugs from 2005 to 2008. Eiseman committed suicide with an overdose of pills prescribed from the pain clinic for his back pain. The drugs included oxycodone, which the suit indicates was prescribed months before the doctor received test results to verify the injury.

According to the lawsuit, Dr. Lazzopina failed to exercise the proper standard of care and reduce the oxycodone dosage after Eiseman's condition improved. It also appears that the doctor erred by never referring his patient to a drug addiction specialist. A December article on the case from The Miami Herald indicates that the doctor, who specializes in urology, advertises detoxification treatments for drug addicts and pain-management treatments in local newspapers. The article also states that the Fort Lauderdale Pain Relief Center is owned by Integra Health Services, a company whose founders also created an MRI facility in eastern Kentucky, which it says has become "a hotbed of illegal trafficking of painkillers from South Florida pain clinics."

Doctors who prescribe addictive painkillers and anxiety drugs owe a duty to their patients and the public to take adequate precautions to help ensure that their patients do not become addicted to the medications. During the last several years, South Florida has become one of the country's chief suppliers of black-market painkillers, and Broward alone is home to 33 of the 50 doctors who dispense the most oxycodone in the country, according to data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. As this trend continues, our attorneys will continue to offer free and confidential consultations to the victims and their families of these unscrupulous healthcare providers who put profits over the health and wellness of their patients.

When pharmacy and medication errors resulting in serious injuries and sometimes even fatalities take place in Miami and other parts of the country, Florida medical malpractice lawyers such as those at our firm are called on by the victims and their families to turn to our justice system for help. Such was the case in early in mid-Dec. when a law firm filed a lawsuit against a pharmacy that is accused of dispensing the wrong dosage of a drug, which the suit alleges caused the death of a 54 year-old cancer patient.

The lawsuit indicates that John Sheridan had been prescribed the drug Temodar as part of his cancer treatment, but the prescription and dosage that was supplied to him was nearly 10 times the correct amount. As a result, he died within a month of taking the exorbitant dosage of the medication.

With the counsel and guidance of their attorneys in Detroit, the Sheridan family has entered into a confidential settlement with his oncologist, but they have decided to pursue the case against Rite Aid, the pharmacy. The family's attorneys reason that the pharmacists are highly trained specialists who owe a duty to the safety of the public to recognize such a blatant error and contact the prescribing physician for a clarification.

Over the years, we have seen similar lawsuits involving doctors and pharmacies making serious and sometimes fatal drug errors in Miami and throughout South Florida. Lawsuits involving prescription and medication errors help the victims and their families to turn to the justice system in order to force those who are responsible to provide restitution for their negligence or inability to follow the accepted standards of practice.

Continue reading "Pharmacy Error Lawsuit Results from Death of Victim" »

Lawsuits against hospitals involving the death of a patient often result from poor and inadequate medical attention by physicians and the medical staff. The Miami attorneys of Gamba Lombana recently read about a lawsuit that alleges such negligence caused the death of a female patient in California.

In November 2008, 57-year-old Penny Prevezich died after she arrived at the San Mateo Medical Center and was left unattended for approximately 90 minutes in the waiting area; where she stopped breathing and entered complete cardiac arrest. The lawsuit alleges that the hospital "carelessly and negligently managed the care of [the victim and] failed to monitor and supervise her."

According to HealthGrades, the leading independent healthcare ratings organization, an estimated 195,000 people died in 2000, 2001 and 2002 due to potentially preventable medical errors.

Continue reading "Negligence by Hospital Staff Leads to Wrongful Death Lawsuit" »