When a Houston patient has a medical condition that requires surgery, they are often in great pain. Surgery is a way to help a person feel better and try to correct any issues that are bothering them. Most of the time the patients are treated well, surgery is performed and the patient’s medical condition is helped. But occasionally a surgeon performs a surgery that results in negligence.
A Houston woman is upset over the way she was treated by her surgeon. The woman went to the doctor last summer with a hiatal hernia. The hernia was causing her to have more than a hundred abdominal attacks each 24 hours that were extremely painful. The surgeon who was to be operating on her at Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston told her that it would take two months in order to have the surgery. Because of the way the surgeon treated her prior to the surgery the woman decided to hide a recording device in her hair during the surgery just in case something happened. Prior to the surgery the surgeon asked what reaction she had to penicillin. The woman said that when she was a baby she swelled up, indicating a reaction to penicillin. The surgeon did not believe that was a severe enough reaction and decided to give her an antibiotic injection of Ancef. The woman wound up having an allergic reaction to the medication, which included trouble breathing, swelling and rashes. During the surgery the surgeon also made racist remarks, talked on his cell phone and engaged in other inappropriate behavior and conversation.
Surgeons are a valuable member of a medical team. However, when they take that power for granted and abuse their patients, they should be held responsible. A legal professional skilled in medical malpractice can help a family who has a complaint about their surgery. They can review medical records and consult with medical experts to determine what happened. If negligence is suspected, they can hold the surgeon responsible and compensation may be available for medical expenses, pain and suffering and other damages.
Source: Kentucky.com, “Worried patient secretly records surgery; here’s what she heard“, Yanan Wang, April 7, 2016
