re: Calling OT legal experts: Medical Malpractice

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physicians that probably would have erred on this one too. Not all physicians are created equal and some are just in a rush to get to the next patient and aren't as keen. 

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And this doesn't meet the legal standard for malpractice, therefore no case, and the reason the lawyers you've contacted have told you that.

How old are you? If you're relatively young with no prior history of heart disease then CHF may have been further down their list of possible diagnoses.

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So some random joe blow takes one look at you and determines that you have congestive heart failure? Dudes a fricking genius.

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He's not a genius. He just went through the same thing I'm going through now. He had congestive heart failure and is my age. In his case he needed a pacemaker.

Just another point that may help. Besides having the same surgery as you I also work in a busy urgent care. We can tell between pneumonia and heart failure fairly easily and see both here. The people think they have a cough but the docs can spot it easily and send them to the ER. Seems like a real shitty doctor.

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orry you went through this. If you live in Louisiana, you may not have a shot at Malpractice unfortunately. Before you can file a Malpractice suit, your case has to be reviewed by a group of doctors who will decide whether or not to allow it.

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incorrect, they dont "allow" it or not, they just have an opinion on if med mal did or didnt occur. the case still proceeds forward regardless of the panels ruling

I can see that on the first couple visits but after an x ray showing an enlarged heart, coupled with the already noted symptoms...how did they not at least consider it?

As soon as I mentioned the x ray, my wife said "gotta order the echo."

Damn, man, glad to hear you're on the road to recovery.

There's little doubt your condition could/should have been handled better. But based on the details you've provided, I wouldn't get my hopes up for a significant judgement:

Your diagnosis may have been delayed by a few months, the real underlying issues the the mitral valve issue and the coronary artery disease with significant stenosis have been ongoing for years. The first you were born with (obviously) and the second developed overtime due to a combination of genetics and lifestyle choices.

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No. What they did was misdiagnose it and treat me for conditions I didn't have.

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I can't say definitively without your labs, xrays, etc but if your valve failure/CAD was severe enough to cause cardiomegaly and CHF, it's very likely that you DO have obstructive pulmonary disease.

It's also possible that you were teetering along the brink of florid CHF, and you caught a viral upper respiratory infection that pushed you over the edge.


A couple of things likely muddied the water, leading to a delayed diagnosis.
-you're age is not typical for CHF
-you weren't able to see the same family practioner for follow up. Going back to the same person might have allowed for revision of the working diagnosis.
-steroids blamed for the swelling/weight gain rather than CHF
-possibly early secondary obstructive pulmonary disease causing changes on xray that were misinterpreted.

Nice post.
Too bad Darth has to cull through 10 pages of personal attacks, misinformation and outright bullshite to find the 8 or 10 legitimately helpful and informative posts.

Did the ER doc have you hooked up to a telemetry monitor when you had your HR of 140 which was irregular? Assuming it was new onset afib, I can't imagine why they wouldn't admit you.

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Yea let's sue a doctor because he may or may not have made a mistake


I can't stand people like you

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So you'd rather doctors just ignore obvious signs of a serious condition and send people home to die? Great idea.