Physician's Error In Diagnosing Pregnant Woman Led To Loss Of Child
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-09-25 12:43:25 | Word Count: 683
People have particular things that they want from their physicians. This is almost certainly never more true than when the patient is an expectant mother who is entrusting the doctor with caring for her unborn child. To begin with, the doctor ought to listen to the mother's own intuition. During the pregnancy she gets a sense of something is not right Not considering complaints and her sense that something is wrong, without definitive evidence to the contrary, may bring about tragedy.
Second, the doctor ought to appreciate and follow up on signs suggestive of a considerable complication. This is what their education, training and experience is supposed to give them the ability to do. Of course parents wish that their baby will be born healthy. It may feel like a horrible betrayal of the trust placed on the physician that he or she has the training and experience to recognize when there is a complication in the pregnancy particularly if it is a complication that threatens the life of the unborn baby.
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Then there is the reality of just how badly things can go wrong. In one reported matter, a pregnant woman went to the hospital after with pain in her back and abdomen and continuing bleeding. This was the seventh month of her pregnancy. The doctor concluded that the woman was not in labor and that the tracings from the fetal heart rate monitor were reassuring and showed no signs of fetal distress. Even thought the woman kept bleeding and continued telling the physician that she continued to feel pain in her abdomen, the physician discharged her without any additional testing to discover the reason for the bleeding.
Just a few hours afterward, when the abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding got worse, this woman visited her physician. At that point, the physician sent her to the hospital for delivery of her child. She had considerable hemorrhaging on the way to the hospital. Once at the hospital the medical staff immediately prepared her for an emergency C-section unfortunately the child was stillborn before they were able to perform the C-section. The mother needed transfusions due to the heavy loss of blood. The cause of the pain and vaginal bleeding was identified to be a placental abruption. The law firm that represented the mother published that it took the case to trial and was able to obtain a jury verdict in the amount of $1,651,166 for the mother.
Obviously, an abnormal heart rate would have been an indication that she was experiencing a serious complication requiring appropriate follow up immediately. Then again so were the woman's complaints of pain and bleeding. Yet they were simply dismissed - basically, the doctor likewise ignored her intuition.
The doctor also seemingly never actually considered a placental abruption in the differential diagnosis for the pain despite the fact that jointly they form a classic presentation of a placental abruption. This is not how physicians would normally say is the proper way to evaluate a patient's condition. It was not until the situation worsened later in the day that the physician had her go to the hospital for an emergency C-section.
Scenarios like this take place in hospitals and doctor's offices all too regularly. In the event that the health of an unborn baby is concerned the effects of such digressions from what the patient expects of the doctor can bring about the death of the child. And the physician's actions might not just be a deviation from the patient's wishes, they might also be a departure from the standard of care the doctor is supposed to provide. When that happens the family may have a medical malpractice/wrongful death claim against the physician.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting birth injury medical malpractice cases. You can learn more about practice-law.com/placental-abruption.shtml">placental abruption and other
birth injury matters visit the websites
