Suing the hospitals only seems to enrich your and the hospital's attorneys. Can you locate a patient advocate within the hospital or within your city's human services division? I've had dealings with advocates and have found them extremely professional, knowledgeable of resources I had no idea existed. You may get much farther with that kind of ally. My best wishes for your mom's improved health. .

What would your intention be, if you sued? Punitive damages for your mother? Do you want money from them for future care of your mom? Or do you just want to "teach them a lesson" so to speak?

Money is not the object. I don't need it, nor any of my siblings. Punitive damages. I'm just so angry right now, and really don't want my motives picked apart. Just wondering experiences. BV, thanks for the idea of the patient advocate.

I'm not a big advocate of suing. That being said, I don't wonder you are angry and rightfully so. Sometimes suing is the only way to express that anger and to hold the responsible parties accountable.

You or your Mother probably signed an arbitration clause when she went into the hospital, giving up rights to sue.

I believe they need to firmly know how you feel, sounds like neglect to me. I would not sue but sure would make it known that I am not pleased with her care. Personally confront the hospital, I know they have avenues to do so without suing. Good Luck! Hope it is not the hospital you work at, that could make things miserable for you :)

No advice, just want to say I'm sorry -- and that you should register a complaint, however that is done! Is there another choice of hospital for your mom? Can you 'compartmentalize' ? Don't let your frustration over probable malpractice upset you so much that it interferes with caring for your mother.

*I* would appreciate knowing how one does file a complaint and what action to expect. Can you get any direction from Medicare or a supplemental insurer?

This seems to be misdiagnosis (twice) and inappropriate discharge (twice). I know hospitals are being more closely monitored, with information being made available to the public. One of the categories is discharges/re-admissions. What branch of government compiles these reports?

I agree with patient advocate at the hospital.

Yes, I have known some people who have sued hospitals, their staffs, and their doctors. And won.

This is the same hospital you had issues at before with care? I realize you may not have other choices in the area your mom lives in, but I never understood why people go back over and over to the same hospital when they think they aren't getting good care. People complain all the time about our hospital but they come back over and over. There are 5 hospitals in our area, why in the world would you go back to the same hospital you thought treated you so poorly?

I'm very sorry for your mother's medical misfortunes. I hope you get them resolved promptly to your and her satisfaction. Dealing with frail oldsters, both as a family member as well as as a healthcare provider, can present challenges not faced with younger patients.

You mention you work in a small hospital and I'm sure from your comments over time that you're awesome at what you do. I'm also sure you know that medical blunders and mistakes can be more common at smaller hospitals and with doctors in smaller towns. Not everyone, not always, but for me, it's something to keep in mind and why we've focused our doctor-going with docs and clinics affiliated with our local medical school. Not everyone has such a choice.

(I'm not suggesting that larger places are immune from blunders, not at all).

Best wishes to both of you for a quick and satisfactory outcome.

There are many communities that only have 1 hospital and in an emergency that is where you go,

I've never sued a hospital [primarily because I'm basically not a litigious personality]...BUT...I filed a very thorough complaint with the hospital administrators [as suggested by Jmc101]...citing and including all the records/details involved with the malpractice perpetrated upon me. When my input was sought by the hospital's legal representatives..I cooperated fully and working together, we were successful in seeing that the particular doctor involved lost his license to practice not only in my State but in the neighboring State of NY. He'll never be able to legally practice medicine again.

The sad thing about malpractice is that the damage has been done to the patient and is often irreversible. IMO...the only corrective action that can be taken is to prevent this type of malpractice from occurring again...and again...and again. Find the party or parties involved and go after them with an educated vengeance. Go to the hospital governors, the media...whatever option is available to you until you get the attention needed to bring an end to their bad medical practices.

Exposure at any level can serve to bring a justice of immeasurable proportions. In my case, although I didn't seek their input, the local media were more than anxious to see this particular doctor tarred, feathered and run out of town. He'd done immeasurable harm before he got to me and had succeeded in covering the errors of his ways by paying his victims large sums of hush money to keep them quiet.

However, an important caveat...be sure you have a legitimate complaint and that it can be validated by another appropriate authority. Proof is essential in these matters. Hospitals don't like to challenge members of their staff because it directly reflects on their ability to select talented medical professionals to serve their community. If you can't validate your claim of malpractice...it's likely that it will be ignored. Worse case scenario...without validation...the medical facilities involved could turn around and sue you for libel. So step cautiously when considering this remedy.

Good luck, Sleeper! I appreciate your courage more than you'll ever know. I wish those that had been harmed before me had considered opening the door on the doctor who maimed me rather than lining their pockets with ill gotten green

Patient advocate is the initial course of action. Wait a few days for that to get into the system. Call the administrator's office and ask for an appointment. If you are asked about the nature of your situation, be honest.

If that person does not allow an appointment, then the local newspaper is the next contact. They relish the opportunity to take on something like this. I believe that the newspaper has a lasting effect, whereas the radio/TV coverage can be pushed aside should something else come along. Those newspapers sit around for a while, not 40 seconds of coverage over the air.

Once you have an appointment, speak with an attorney and get some advice on what to say. Should it come up in the conversation, mention that your attorney has directed you to say "whatever" is appropriate.

Let us jump ahead a bit. Should she become bed-bound or worse, then the groundwork has been placed for a follow-up contact by your attorney. You would not get compensation now; however, you might get better care in the near future.

Good luck with this process.

Unfortunately and sadly, from my experience (employed by/worked in different hospitals since late '70's), nothing changes behavior or fixes problems quite as well or quickly as a lawsuit.

When it hits them financially, and they have to pay, there is motivation for change. Staff can argue for funding to improve patient care, but a lawsuit will get that $$$ and change much quicker. DF attorney advises don't take lawsuits personally, it's just business.

However, in the cases you described, missed PE thought to be pneumonia, and missed hip fx, are not uncommon, you really need an expert to review the case. In most situations, an ED visit should never be considered a definitive diagnosis and pts need to follow-up with the appropriate specialty physician.

With her leg pain and hx of PE, they may have been more concerned about DVT.

@ chisue, regarding "One of the categories is discharges/re-admissions. What branch of government compiles these reports?" ----- What is monitored is pts readmitted for the same diagnosis. Medicare does not want to pay for 2 admissions for pneumonia in the same month, as this may indicate inadequate treatment during the first hospitalization or discharge too early. This is tracked via billing and the data is publically available.

https://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/search.html?

I am now just able to get back to this thread after having driven down and just got back from visiting my Mom. She had just gotten back from MRI to figure out whether it should be fixed with surgery, and haven't heard from ortho yet. She looked good, had most of her faculties and seemed in good spirits. She does have a troubling cough and phlegm, but is afebrile and oxygen level is good.

Andi, I am so sorry for what you went through! I have worked at larger hospitals before and have seen horrible surgeons continue to maim people until they eventually get run out of town. One was a Mayo system! Doctors cover for other doctors, unfortunately.

Elmer, thanks for the kind words. No, this is not a small hospital. But it was a small hospital that I work at that did eventually correctly diagnose her back at Christmas, after being mis-diagnosed at this hospital.

Kath, yes it is the same hospital that she was mis-diagnosed at, and I did get her to switch primary care physicians but she would NEVER go to another hospital. As I said, there is a long family history there.

I talked to the charge nurse tonight about my concerns, and he is going to have the advocate contact me. I was emotional with my first posting, but I would not ever sue. But I sure want them to know that their ER is crap at diagnosing. Thanks for all the suggestions and stories.

A good friend had surgery and the doctor nicked her bladder. She had to have a tube and wear a bag for a year, because they said it had to heal on it's own.

She did contact a lawyer and after going thru all the information they told her she would not win, because there was "no permanent damage"!

She was a legal secretary and knew what papers to gather.

I actually understand that, Kathy. Nicking the bladder is a risk of specific surgeries.

I got speedy resolution with the PA when my husband had issues in the hospital. I was very surprised at how quickly she responded, how thoroughly she investigated and how determined she was to resolve the issue.

DIL's father was of counsel to a major Chicago hospital. He complained that it was almost impossible to get one MD to 'rat out' another if it meant they would have to ultimately *testify* against the bad doc. The best he could manage was to encourage anonymous complaints, then observe and confront the bad doctor with the number of complaints. (I hope he included complaints from the people who see it all -- the nurses.)

Is there a name for this version of the Thin Blue Line protecting bad cops?

mdln -- Thanks. I was thinking it was medicare.gov for the stats.

The reason for the most common medical advice I give family & friends, "Get a second, third, or even fourth opinion if you need to."

I know of one person who sued his health care provider and won. However- the error made was egregious. The man presented at urgent care with slurred speech, unable to write properly (he tried to write a note for a neighbor and his writing looked like a child's.) He was sent away being told that his symptoms were stress related (the man was a C-level employee at a Fortune 100 company and his newborn daughter was in ICU.) He went home, resumed normal life, went on a hike the next day, came home and collapsed from a major stroke. It took about a year of intense speech therapy for our friend to get his speech back- but his career- he was the likely next CEO of his company- ended ahead of schedule.

With respect to secrecy, one of my dearest friends is a cardiologist in this system. One day I told her about the situation and her eyes bugged out of her head- because she told me she sits on the committee that reviews such cases and she had never heard of this incident.

The case settled to my friend's financial satisfaction- a cold comfort.

My friend finally heard about the case from her employer when the settlement was reached.

I am very sorry to hear of your mother's suffering. I wish you all the best in seeking an improvement in her care.

ETA As mentioned in previous posts- cases like this are not litigated, they go into arbitration.

In 2008 my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. After going thru chemo a pet??? Scan showed a miracle is how the cancer doctors worded it..he said everything shrunk and he figured mom could safely go on her 4 month yearly trip to Alaska. Her and step father had planned and packed prior to this wonderful news. Mom went into her PCP the following Monday to be sure she had all her meds (BP) in order, while at her PCP, who was involved with her care thru all the chemo noted her abdomen was a bit swollen..so he prescribed a diuretic knowing she had been battling dehydration..mom took these pills Monday Tuesday Wednesday,.....Thursday morning mom was rushed to the er where her kidneys shut down...she slipped into a coma and 3 days later she was gone.

I could have stopped what happened, but I was at Childrens hospital with my daughter until late Wednesday night..I knew nothing about the diuretic until it was too late...my mom was gone prematurely because of a doctor she trusted for 46 years.

My step father talked to one Attorney, afterwards my step father decided to do nothing.

Perhaps I should have...how many times I have wished I would have been home...I know what a diuretic is and I would have stopped her from taking it....if only......

In my opinion, the answer to better medical outcomes and fewer problems is more oversight (perhaps mandatory second opinions for major diagnosis and treatment decisions and investigations of mistakes) to include more public disclosure of problem rates for doctors and hospitals and also public access to medical board disciplinary actions. A segment of the medical profession is pushing back against this but I think some forms of better information sharing will be with us before too long.

Lawsuits mostly enrich lawyers. There's nothing to lose in filing a lawsuit, no matter how weak the complaint, because our tort law doesn't require the prevailing party's expenses be paid by the losing party, as is the case in most other countries. If there's half an argument (but not more), there's a nuisance value insurance companies are often willing to pay to have claims dropped.

Many states have fortunately enacted statutory limitations on medical malpractice awards and that has reduced and stabilized awards and insurance costs, which, after all, patients wind up footing the bill for in the form of higher medical charges.

To improve safety, we in medicine need to adopt practices used by the airline industry.

Are you talking about the use of checklists, as discussed by Gawande in Checklist Manifesto (which I'm sure you're familiar with)? A problem is the limit of checklists to big picture issues. In the book, didn't he limit what he advocated to just the commencement and end of surgical procedures - This is the patient, introduce yourself and your role, this is the procedure, were antibiotics administered, etc. etc., not really the choice of or steps needed to conduct the procedure? Could be wrong, it's been a few years since I read it.

Maybe what's needed in that direction is the use of expert systems for diagnoses and treatments, something that I don't think any of us will live long enough to see physicians accept enthusiastically.

Many things, including crew resource managemt and ASRS. Am sure there is something better written, but this gives an overview.

https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/The_Aviation_Safety_Reporting_System

I would have sued the doctor who advised my husband not to get a PSA test, even though he had a very enlarged prostate and wasn't feeling well. He was eventually diagnosed (by a urologist) with advanced prostate cancer and died 27 months later. It might well have made a difference with an earlier diagnosis - at least given him more time.

But this doctor destroyed all my husband's records and dropped his malpractice insurance. He also practiced in NH, which has a reputation of being a very difficult state for a malpractice claim - think they must have to cut of the head instead of removing tonsils. So no lawsuit but sure wish we could have done so.

Doctors are human and they do make mistakes. My son might still be alive if the doctor had thought for one minute my son had blood clots in his lung and not a chest infection. It just never occurred to him as several xrays did not show the clots. It takes a special test to find those. It wasn't until my son was on life support that it was found.

In Canada, we cannot sue a hospital or a doctor. They are government officials (dr's are paid by the government through tax payer money) and we can file a complaint, and a revue will be held, we cannot sue for money. I would never had sued my sons doctor for not noticing or even thinking of a blood clot in the lung.

So, if I were in the US and could have done it, would I? No.

Debby, I am so sorry about your son. Similar thing happened to me...treated for lung infection, finally hospitalized, being discharged on oxygen (WHAT?) when a blessed doc who didn't even know me, decided there was something else to check and found a pulmonary embolism. I owe him my life.

My husband had a different outcome, healthy strapping guy in his 40's being treated for lung infection. Ended up in the hospital with severe pain in his side. Turned out it was a blood clot in his kidneys, which eventually caused a stroke. He was paralyzed on one side, then the hospital made some serious mistakes and he died. It was a blessing, though, as he never would have recovered and would have been miserable. I, too, would have had grounds for several lawsuits, from the original doc to the hospital. But it wouldn't have brought him back or changed anything, so I just let it be and accepted that sometimes bad things happen.