Indiana Injury Lawyer Blog

Dr. William Hedrick has developed quite a reputation in the Fort Worth community where he practices.Hedrick, a pain doctor, has been repeatedly accused of substandard care, and recently walked out of a hearing regarding his methods mostly unscathed.

In December 2012, the attorney general filed a complaint against Hedrick for his infamous patient malpractice history. The complaint alleged Hedrick, either willfully or negligently, ignored signs of addiction and/or evidence that the controlled pain killing substances were being diverted from their intended patient sources. Seven deceased patients of Hedrick were used as focal example in the complaint. The Indiana Medical Licensing Board ultimately and successfully proved a few charges – failure to properly supervise employees, overuse of a steroid injection, and one count of breach of standard of care – but dismissed Hedrick of three other counts. Hedrick was sentenced to two years probation and mandatory ethics training.
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As Indiana law stands now, medical malpractice awards are limited to $1.25 million. This might and should change as many see the law as outdated, senseless, and unconstitutional.An Indiana jury awarded an Evansville couple $15 million for their medical malpractice suit against St. Mary’s Medical Center and an associated doctor. The Bobbitts, suing on behalf of their daughter, are now preparing to lose most of that award on appeal.

The basis of the malpractice suit alleged that the hospital and Dr. Mureena Turnquest-Wells were professionally negligent when the defendants improperly conducted a fetal blood procedure on the couple’s daughter without adequate staffing and did not provide continuous ultrasound guidance throughout the procedure. As a result, the Bobbitt’s daughter suffered severe brain damage and cerebral palsy in all four limbs. The damages the suit sought was to provide for the couple and their child as she is wheelchair bound, fed via a tube, and requires constant nursing care.
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The surgeon’s hand has been a long-lasting symbol of precision. Now there is a new competitor to the surgical field, pulled straight from science fiction novels. Robotic surgery is the new ground-breaking trend intended and designed to remove all human error. But just like any other technological invention, this innovation is not perfect and major lawsuits have developed as a result of these seemingly error-free machines.The Da Vinci Surgical Robot, made by Intuitive Surgical, was approved for use by the FDA in 2000. The system can be found in several thousand hospitals throughout the world, and in 2012 was responsible for 200,000 surgical procedures. This year, however, more and more problems and lawsuits seem to be mounting against the system, with the FDA even launching their own investigation as a result of several deaths.

Burns are the most often suffered non-fatal injury as a result of robot assisted surgery. Aside from burns, damage as a result of heat to vital organs and arteries is quite common. Other complaints have alleged lacerations, nerve injuries, tears, and sepsis. Any individual who has suffered medical ailments in the aftermath of robotic surgery should contact an experienced Indiana personal injury attorney.

This year, Time magazine reported on the series of strange accidents stemming from robotic surgeries. This report included one incident with the patient being struck in the face by a robotic arm.

Injuries suffered during robotic surgery can ultimately end up being as serious as death. In 2007, an Illinois man had his splenectomy performed by the Da Vinci system. The operating surgeon — or, in this case, the surgeon operating the Da Vinci system — had never performed a procedure using the system on a living patient. During the procedure, the robotic arm punctured the man’s intestines and, as a result, the man died. In 2012, the family of the victim received a $7.5 million award for their wrongful death suit.

The potential for error in these operations runs deep. A Washington wrongful death suit involving a man who had died of heart failure four years after a Da Vinci operation, having suffered complications allegedly from the operation, revealed a dark source of Da Vinci’s problems. During the litigation of the case, the Intuitive Surgical Director of Marketing testified that internal marketing material identified and targeted surgeons who were seen as lacking certain surgical skills and having a history of only performing minimally invasive procedures. The plaintiff’s attorneys further alleged that the sales reps for Intuitive Surgical encouraged hospitals to lower the standards on which doctors may operate the system, and even used operation schedules to identify surgeries which could be done by the system in place of the skilled surgeon.
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A father who murdered his two daughters and wife last year has filed a suit alleging improper mental health treatment in the Indiana County Common Pleas court against the Indiana Regional Medical Center.

Lewis Beatty was convicted of the murder of his two daughters and estranged wife. The three were murdered on June 1, 2012, but only one month earlier Mr. Beatty was expressing homicidal and suicidal thoughts at the Indiana Regional Medical Center.In the month before the grisly murders, Mr. Beatty suffered severe emotional distress after discovering his estranged wife was now with another man. He visited the mental health clinic of the medical center to address his emotional state. While at the facility he expressed his desire to murder his wife and then kill himself to an attending nurse in the emergency room.

Mr. Beatty spent only about 26 minutes with a doctor at the facility. Doctor Tomacruz, the doctor who treated Beatty, wrote a prescription for anxiety medication and sent Mr. Beatty away only 40 minutes after having entered the clinic. Further evidence includes Mr. Beatty’s chart from the facility that identifies his expressed desire to kill both his wife and himself.

Mr. Beatty strangled his and his wife’s two daughters and slit their throats before driving to his wife’s workplace. From her workplace, he stalked her back to her home where he proceeded to strangle her and cut her throat as well. After setting fire to her home, he attempted suicide by slitting his wrists. First responders rescued and resuscitated Beatty from the burning East Mahoning Township home.

Mr. Beatty pleaded guilty for the three murders to avoid the death penalty. He is currently serving three consecutive life sentences without parole in Erie County state prison.

The civil suit against the medical center is seeking unspecified punitive damages for their alleged failings in two regards. Firstly, the argument is that the medical center should have warned Mrs. Beatty of the threats made about her by her husband. The second argument is that the center or doctor failed to meet their appropriate standard of care, consequently breaching a duty by not taking the man’s homicidal expressions more seriously.

It is further alleged that the attending physician, Dr. Tomacruz, failed to consider Mr. Beatty’s medical and social history (he had been visiting a psychiatrist for 6 months preceding his visit to the hospital) or the chart drawn up by hospital staff, which reinforced Mr. Beatty’s violent confessions. The suit charges that Beatty would have likely considered further psychiatric consultations if so ordered based on his own voluntary visit to the center, and such a consult could have identified whether he posed a threat.

The medical center and attending physician have denied any wrongdoing, citing a lack of obligation to inform unless specific threats are made by the individual seeking treatment. In this case, according to the defendants, there was no specific threat but just dangerous propensities. Furthermore, the defendant’s preliminary objections identify that, at maximum, the conduct would be classified as ordinary negligence, which does not generally permit an award of punitive damages.
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