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PRIMARY CARE DOCTOR MALPRACTICE : $ 1,000,000,000.00 "Recovery" of Policy Limits.
--- Failure to order chest x-ray/referral when patient presents with labored breathing. Misdiagnosis of antibiotic issues on return visit. ARDS. Wrongful death of 36-year-old weeks later. -----
This medical malpractice action involved a 36-year-old overweight man who came under the care of the defendant primary care physician after relocating to the area after a recent marriage.
The Plaintiff's Estate contended that the now-deceased plaintiff-patient presented with signs and symptoms of pneumonia, including labored breathing and an inability to pass a pulmonary function test, that the defendant physician negligently failed to order a chest x-ray, and failed to conduct a pulse oximetry test or refer the patient to a pulmonologist. The defendant physician prescribed a broad spectrum antibiotic at this visit.
The Plaintiff's Estate maintained that when the patient returned three days later with heightened breathing difficulties difficulties, a high temperature and the onset of diarrhea, the defendant physician again failed to order appropriate tests and a referral, and compounded the negligence by changing from a broad spectrum antibiotic to a narrow band medication, resulting in the chances of it being effective extremely small.
The wife (now widow) brought the decedent to the hospital Emergency Room (ER) at 3 in the morning two days later gasping for breath. The patient was placed in ICU on a ventilator. A chest x-ray revealed that the untreated pneumonia had progressed to Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). Despite heroic treatment measures, the decedent died in ICU several weeks later.
The Plaintiff's Estate maintained that had the decedent's pneumonia been diagnosed at any time before the onset of ARDS, he would have received appropriate antibiotic therapy and recovered.
The case settled during jury selection for the defendant primary care physician's $ 1,000,000,000.00 policy limits.
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