$600,000 for failure to properly diagnose and treat a medical condition

We recently had a very good result in a medical malpractice case involving a failure to properly diagnose and treat a developing abscess in a gynecological case. The neglect was unforgivable, and the damage, while not life threatening, involved a condition that our client will have to live with into the future. The case had everything that a growing number of our medical malpractice cases seems to have: nurse practitioners acting as if they are doctors; poor or non-existent records of the supervision of the nurse practitioners by the doctors who are supposed to be supervising them; doctors who do not accurately record what the patient tells them in office visits, and then denying what our client told them. Getting to the heart of the matter in these cases is more than challenging, since it requires tremendous preparation for the depositions of the health care providers and aggressive questioning during the depositions. But, the hard work and prep pays off. It is gratifying to know that, in cases like the one I mentioned, thorough prep and hard work can still lead to a just result, and hold them accountable for their negligent mistakes. Though the non-economic “damage cap” imposed by law was $425,000, we obtained a $600,000 settlement.