I always thought the tyroid was located near the base of the neck. Air trapped in the abdomin? Having actually had mulitple abdominal surgery, any air in the abdomin is absobed by the body. The so called trapped air by itself is not cause for bleeding leading to death.
Sound like some facats were omited from this article or the jury slept through any medical testimony.
“After the surgery, Shannyn MacPherson developed “abdominal compartment syndrome,” or trapped air in her stomach. She was taken back into surgery and opened up, but the reason for the trapped air couldn’t be found, so she was sewn up before all the air was released, Higgins said. Within 90 minutes, her abdomen was swollen again and the pressure from the trapped air caused her internal organs to bleed. “
Where’s the negligence/malpractice? Some people have complications totally unrelated to the quality of the procedure. There are variable beyond the control of medical professionals. The only thing patients can hope for is that those professionals do everything within their power to keep them alive. Sometimes, it doesn’t and nobody can be faulted. Enriching the survivors accomplishes nothing but setting bad precedent. These ridiculous awards should be reserved for true, malpractice cases.
This sounds like an anesthesia accident – or ‘tubing the goose’ as it’s called where the doc misses the trachea and puts the breather into the esophogus – thereby inflating the gastric pouch (stomach) and causing associated hypoxia. Also sounds like they were in such a hurry to repair what I assume was a gastric rupture that they missed some bleeders onthe way out and she died of internal exsanguination
How can you read the Insurance Journal skimpy article and an excerpt posted from another article and decide that you know there wasn’t malpractice and the verdict was ridiculous? Try filtering out your emotions before you post idiotic nonsense.
We can’t make any progress as a society as long as the courts are a lottery for attorneys. When a death occurs, AND IT’S PROVEN THERE WAS IN FACT REAL MALPRACTICE (which is rare), people file lawsuits, ostensibly to recover pecuniary damages to “punish” the wrongdoer, and I almost forgot…….hit the lottery. You can’t argue with the pecuniary element. That’s only fair. But why should survivors be unjustly enriched over a tragedy. Forget “punishing” anybody, that’s why there’s insurance. If the goal is to improve the system, then any award should go to some type of fund that can impact CHANGE. We keep doing the same thing we’ve always done and keep expecting a different outcome. It’s insanity, but it’s big business.
How can anyone know what it feels like to actually lose a family member, and the resulting horror of having watched a loved one lose their life? Until you walk in those shoes, please don’t pass judgement. When a doctor who has never performed a procedure does just this, and it ends poorly for the patient, what other process is there to make the doctor accountable? This doctor clearly should not have performed the surgery, and his assistant should not have assisted, as she did not know proper procedure for abdominal compartment syndrome. Why didn’t they call in the experts when they had difficulty with the patient????
Allan raises some good points. Throwing money at the survivors doesn’t accomplish anything in terms of punishing the wrongdoer or preventing future incidents. In spite of the plaintiffs saying “you can’t put a price on the loss of our loved one”, that’s exactly what they’ve done. “Mary died so we might as well get some some money so we can feel better.” Let’s be honest, the system makes no sense.
Family Member, it is rather presumptuous to think that nobody posting here has lost a loved-one while the loved one was receiving medical care.
And nothing in the article says either doctor was new at performing this type of procedure. Their expertise in any field is not mentioned.
From the information given this does not look like malpractice. It looks like “bad things happen”. That’s why people should carry life insurance. For some reason America seems to think that professionals must perform to perfection every time or they are committing malpractice and that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. Professionals are allowed to be human and make mistakes; and with doctors that sometimes means people will die. It’s when they intentionally do something wrong or what they do is so bone-headed that nobody in the profession could condone the action that it becomes malpractice. I just don’t see that in this article.
Who cares if it was a family member or not, emotion does not belong in the Court system. Using that type of logic is so tired and just doesn’t apply. I will still judge these money grubbers that “need” $12M to find closure. It’s pure B.S.
To lastbat, try reading one of the other many articles written about this lawsuit. In the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald, it clearly stated that the surgeon had never performed this surgery before. It also says that the doctor did not follow protocol when he closer her back up with air trapped in her stomach. She should have been left open until the cause of the air was determined, instead of closed back up to allow all the air to accumulate.
For those of you that did not read the entire article (some papers only posted a paragraph), the doctor that performed the surgery had NEVER treated this condition on a thyroid before. Therefore, he had NO BUSINESS operating on her thyroid. It is common practice that when you make an incision to release air, you are not supposed to close the patient back up. This is in the larger articles. Yet, both doctors closed the patient, but she still had so much air in her that the trapped air caused internal organs to bleed. Simple case, they made a BAD decision to close her. Simple procedure, but they didn’t know what they were doing!!
I always thought the tyroid was located near the base of the neck. Air trapped in the abdomin? Having actually had mulitple abdominal surgery, any air in the abdomin is absobed by the body. The so called trapped air by itself is not cause for bleeding leading to death.
Sound like some facats were omited from this article or the jury slept through any medical testimony.
According to the Lowell Sun:
“After the surgery, Shannyn MacPherson developed “abdominal compartment syndrome,” or trapped air in her stomach. She was taken back into surgery and opened up, but the reason for the trapped air couldn’t be found, so she was sewn up before all the air was released, Higgins said. Within 90 minutes, her abdomen was swollen again and the pressure from the trapped air caused her internal organs to bleed. “
Where’s the negligence/malpractice? Some people have complications totally unrelated to the quality of the procedure. There are variable beyond the control of medical professionals. The only thing patients can hope for is that those professionals do everything within their power to keep them alive. Sometimes, it doesn’t and nobody can be faulted. Enriching the survivors accomplishes nothing but setting bad precedent. These ridiculous awards should be reserved for true, malpractice cases.
This sounds like an anesthesia accident – or ‘tubing the goose’ as it’s called where the doc misses the trachea and puts the breather into the esophogus – thereby inflating the gastric pouch (stomach) and causing associated hypoxia. Also sounds like they were in such a hurry to repair what I assume was a gastric rupture that they missed some bleeders onthe way out and she died of internal exsanguination
Exsanguination! Don’t use such big words. Us ‘C’ students can’t understand youse.
HAHA! Great callback!
How can you read the Insurance Journal skimpy article and an excerpt posted from another article and decide that you know there wasn’t malpractice and the verdict was ridiculous? Try filtering out your emotions before you post idiotic nonsense.
Ya mean like Dreadful’s comments? Where are your filtered, reasoned, factual notes?
We can’t make any progress as a society as long as the courts are a lottery for attorneys. When a death occurs, AND IT’S PROVEN THERE WAS IN FACT REAL MALPRACTICE (which is rare), people file lawsuits, ostensibly to recover pecuniary damages to “punish” the wrongdoer, and I almost forgot…….hit the lottery. You can’t argue with the pecuniary element. That’s only fair. But why should survivors be unjustly enriched over a tragedy. Forget “punishing” anybody, that’s why there’s insurance. If the goal is to improve the system, then any award should go to some type of fund that can impact CHANGE. We keep doing the same thing we’ve always done and keep expecting a different outcome. It’s insanity, but it’s big business.
How can anyone know what it feels like to actually lose a family member, and the resulting horror of having watched a loved one lose their life? Until you walk in those shoes, please don’t pass judgement. When a doctor who has never performed a procedure does just this, and it ends poorly for the patient, what other process is there to make the doctor accountable? This doctor clearly should not have performed the surgery, and his assistant should not have assisted, as she did not know proper procedure for abdominal compartment syndrome. Why didn’t they call in the experts when they had difficulty with the patient????
Allan raises some good points. Throwing money at the survivors doesn’t accomplish anything in terms of punishing the wrongdoer or preventing future incidents. In spite of the plaintiffs saying “you can’t put a price on the loss of our loved one”, that’s exactly what they’ve done. “Mary died so we might as well get some some money so we can feel better.” Let’s be honest, the system makes no sense.
Family Member, it is rather presumptuous to think that nobody posting here has lost a loved-one while the loved one was receiving medical care.
And nothing in the article says either doctor was new at performing this type of procedure. Their expertise in any field is not mentioned.
From the information given this does not look like malpractice. It looks like “bad things happen”. That’s why people should carry life insurance. For some reason America seems to think that professionals must perform to perfection every time or they are committing malpractice and that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. Professionals are allowed to be human and make mistakes; and with doctors that sometimes means people will die. It’s when they intentionally do something wrong or what they do is so bone-headed that nobody in the profession could condone the action that it becomes malpractice. I just don’t see that in this article.
Who cares if it was a family member or not, emotion does not belong in the Court system. Using that type of logic is so tired and just doesn’t apply. I will still judge these money grubbers that “need” $12M to find closure. It’s pure B.S.
To lastbat, try reading one of the other many articles written about this lawsuit. In the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald, it clearly stated that the surgeon had never performed this surgery before. It also says that the doctor did not follow protocol when he closer her back up with air trapped in her stomach. She should have been left open until the cause of the air was determined, instead of closed back up to allow all the air to accumulate.
For those of you that did not read the entire article (some papers only posted a paragraph), the doctor that performed the surgery had NEVER treated this condition on a thyroid before. Therefore, he had NO BUSINESS operating on her thyroid. It is common practice that when you make an incision to release air, you are not supposed to close the patient back up. This is in the larger articles. Yet, both doctors closed the patient, but she still had so much air in her that the trapped air caused internal organs to bleed. Simple case, they made a BAD decision to close her. Simple procedure, but they didn’t know what they were doing!!