Colonoscopy gone bad

hospital | 10/13/02 | self

[Cobra64]

Man almost bled to death as a result of a colonoscopy.

[contessa machiaveli]

it's difficult to prove medmal but you could give it a try...the lawyer will take this on contingency. you can sue the hospital as well as the dr. is there residual damage? loss of income? loss of service? you get my point. many law suits are filed because of the arrogance and lack of compassion of doctors.

[Semper Paratus]

Great, I'm having one Tuesday to rule out internal bleeding, hopefully not cause it!

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Seems the proc doc was responsible. Doesnt your insurance company have malpractice lawyers?

[RedBloodedAmerican]

BTW, that's why it's called "Practicing Medicine".

[cherry]

re-reading about your iron supplement....I too think that whatever he intended to give you was probably not enough to cause damage however.....was it the same doctor who did the procedure and also saw you in the ER?......

I will tell everybody this:....never assume that there is good communication between doctors , between doctors and nurses etc etc....ALWAYS be aware of your health situation and don't hesitate to ask questions....docs do not have access to every bit of info on you and they also forget things......

[Dog Gone]

Colonoscopies are fairly routine, unless there is a problem! There may or may not be a good reason why you had excessive bleeding. If the doctor rammed it through a fold in your colon, then that's malpractice. If you have diverticulitis or polyps and the procedure simply triggered the bleeding, then you were a timebomb, anyway.

The important thing is to find out what caused the bleeding. It wasn't necessarily malpractice. But it might have been.

[TC Rider]

My Dad, now 80, had a similar 'bleeding' problem about 8 years ago. In his case, too much 'roughage' had torn a polyp. He passed out while walking, and of course had LOTS of blood in his stool.

The ER figured it out immediately, gave him whole blood and kept him a few days under observation, including a colonoscopy.

They told him to eliminate all roughage from his diet, no peanuts, etc. They told him that at his age he needs no roughage, that his large intestine is worn thin from years of use.

Your doctor dropped the ball.

FWIW, my wife suffered from gallbladder discease for nearly a year. The doc kept saying she had acid reflux and kept prescribing Prilosec, (purple pill).

When she had an attack, Vicadan (hydracodone) was about all that would relieve the pain.

She finally demanded and got a ultrasound. The tech whistled and said it was the nastiest gallbladder she had ever seen. Got it yanked. Got a new doctor.

I mostly blamed the doctor and partly the drug company who makes Prilosec. They had huge promotions going on at the time. It was like the story of the man whose only tool was a hammer and everything looks like a nail.

We didn't sue, she was well, we wanted to move on.

(I'm certain I've misspelled most of the drugs and conditions)

[Dick Vomer]

Well.... before you all sue the doctor you might want to think about this case. There is a difference between a bad outcome and malpractice. In other words if somebody does 1000 heart catheterizations 1-2 of them will end up with a perforated artery and 1%-5% will die. It sucks to be that .00001-.00005 cause all you know is that 100% of the one you loved is dead. So let's just see what happened here.

#1 The GI doc that did the procedure had you sign a permit with one of the "complications" listed as infection, bleeding, perforation etc...

#2 Post procedure you were told that if you bled you were to show up to the ER or call the office... you did that.

#3 In the ER the doctor found out that you were bleeding and it really isn't important to measure the blood in the toilet cause a little bit of blood will look like a lot mixed with stool or water. Sometimes a lot of blood can be hidden behind a lump of feces, so only a little blood may fool you also. So the important thing to know is if you are CONTINUING to bleed. So they might want to compare you H/H (hemoglobin/hematocrit=blood level of RBC's) at the time of the ER visit with your pre-op H/H. They tend to repeat them every six hours and see how you are doing... if you are dropping then rescope and transfuse as a last resort.

#4 The "deer in the headlights" look was probably.... the doctor thinking... "this guy is bleeding and he's busting my balls for trying to prevent him from IRON SUPPLEMENTS as opposed to a transfusion." The reason men over 50 don't need iron is cause we don't menstruate and lose blood... so it builds up in our system and some seem to think that has a role in cancer and heart disease. If you are bleeding then you need the iron supplement to replenish your losses. Unless you have a metabolic disorder that stores abnormally high iron in your system. The doctor was trying to minimize the chance for transfusion... which can lead to transmision of Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, AIDS, West Nile,...etc.. you get the picture, right? So the ER guy saves your life, tries to prevent you from getting a transfusion you might not need.

#5 You see the doctor in the ICU.... and what was the cause of the bleeding... polyps, perforation (doubtful)cause those tend to bleed INTO the abdomen and you die of infection usually, hemerrhoids, or what?

So it sounds like you got a $17,000 bill that you are upset about and are looking to stick it to the docs. I say................ go for it.

Everybody else does.
Make sure you name the GI doctor, Anesthesiologist, your family doctor, the ER doctor, Radiologist, and the Hospital. All of them will settle and you can come out with a profit..... Oh yeah, make sure you mention the sleep deprivation, the worrying and whatever else you can think of.... you can also add lack of consortium if you were unable to perform your husbandly duty during the 3 days and in the intervening time since your "trauma".

Did they find cancer or polyps? That's usually what the screening colonoscopy is for. The x-ray stuff mentioned is ok I guess but I'd rather do the colonoscopy.

By the way the number 1 reason for malpractice suits against doctors is not poor quality of medicine but poor communication skills towards the patient. Usually you just want to know "WHY?" and a suit is your only avenue... Really bad doctors usually bury their mistakes.........

[southland]

This is what litigation and lawyers are for. We perhaps need more lawsuits rather than fewer.
We have a female friend locally, North East Alabama, who had her intestine burst with this procedure in about July 2002, then her "DR" dismissed her. He later said he "forgot" to tell her what happened. She spent a lot of time in ICU at hopefully a more competent hospital

[kcordell]

Sorry to hear about your experience. As one who no longer has any large intestines I still recommend regular checks. The risk is too great. Good luck on what ever you decide to do.

[Cobra64]

He removed a polyp, and was supposed to cauterize it. It seems he missed it. What happened on the following Monday was when I sat for a bowelmovement. I thought the effluent was diarahhea (who can spell that stinkin' word). When I started to get dizzy, I looked down and saw blood. I had been pressing blood from my bowels. I called my wife, she shrieked, and said she'd been having woemn's periods for 35 years and this was the worse bowl of blood she'd ever seen.

I called the doctor'rs office. The recording said that if there were an emergency, call 911.

With that, I called my interest doctor. His answering service connected me with him. He made contact with the asshole doctor and Karen drove me to the hospital.

The rest is history. I still get the sweats from this though. My wife and children without their husband and father.

Enough said. I'm getting the shakes.

[rollin]

So you are willing to let the attorney have 35% to 70% of your award.

Find one that works on a paid fee basis. You keep the money. But you will probably not be able to find one that is not out for himself.

[Trust but Verify]

You may have signed away any possibility of damages when you signed the release prior to the procedure. I cqan't remember what it said word-for-word, but it seems to me like one of the possible complications included bleeding. The doctor also verbally went over this with me.

The bleeding sometimes cannot be predicted. Cautery might well have been performed and your straining on the commode may have caused it to open up.

Go ahead with a lawsuit if you wish, but it sounds like an uphill battle to me.

[Trust but Verify]

I'm with you. The worst part of the whole test was the evacuation part. If you have to do that either way, what's the point? Might as well get it done the 'old-fashioned' way and not worry if something was missed.

Now if they could eliminate the elimination part, they'd really be on to something!

[hope]

I am sorry you met this fate....Unfortunately we have an abundance of "asshole" doctors just like the one you had the mis-fortune of meeting...believe me, I have stories also.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

let me guess...you are a doctor or someone in the insurance industry?

[VOA]

Anyone have thoughts on this? Should the doctor be held accountable.

Get opinions from a couple of the best med malpractice lawyers you can find.

I almost lost a leg (maybe life) from a true cock-up by an emergency doct...he blew a diagnosis
that a pharmacist in a third-world country would have nailed.

I'm not litigious...but I now encourage anyone with a decent case to push the losers
of the medical field into jobs where they can't maim. And sometimes kill.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

This is very true. When it comes down to it, you must always look out for yourself! Don't be shy, timid or afraid to ask "dumb" questions.

[dennisw]

Sue him at least for med. expenses of $17,000...Or maybe your ins. covered it all.

GET A LAWYER.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

ouch! I like your last line...that's a great pun!