A GP and mayor of Amite, LA loses a malpractice suit:
Records say that Goldsby failed to properly monitor and treat Hendry’s high blood sugar levels, prescribed high doses of steroids to a diabetic patient, failed to properly work up and follow his patient, failed to monitor and treat Hendry’s dehydration, failed to monitor and treat his Coumadin levels and in general permitted Hendry’s condition to deteriorate to the point of death.
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{ 7 comments }
The problem w/diabetes is that control is often very difficult – it is unreasonable to place this responsibility solely on the treating PCP. I have plenty of patients whose families do nothing to encourage dietary compliance or adherence to medications, then wonder if I am not treating them properly (???).
Having a guy with diabetes, probably elderly, on steroids & coumadin? what a train wreck, with an almost universally bad prognosis.
Seeing cases like this remind me to either NOT HAVE noncompliant diabetics in my patient panel, or redirect my existing noncompliant diabetics to endocrinologists (of which there are not enough). Achieving perfection with diabetes is almost always IMPOSSIBLE, although the expectation of such is UNIVERSAL by the uninformed lay public, who eventually are hurting only themselves.
A very difficult situation. Co-morbidities like asthma or temporal arteritis often require use of high doses of steroids and not infrequently in patients with diabetes. Their use can wreak havoc on glycemic control. Which devil do you choose: hyperglycemia, acute respiratory distress, stroke, blindness, death, or hyperosmoloar syndrome?
What so-called expert with any experience treating those diseases could truthfully testify that control is something that could be expected as a matter of course?
“What so-called expert with any experience…”
The kind of expert that is making $10,000 per day for testimony in support of the defendant. Perhaps they are research physiologists or some other nonclinical doctor.
During a brief stint as an oncology fellow, I once had an attending who worked in a lab for like 90% of his job (at a VAMC), “precepted” me seeing cancer patients for 5%, and testifying at malpractice trials on-the-side as an expert for the other 5% of his time.
Once again, without the benefit of the records, the physicians have accurately diagnosed the absence of malpractice by one of their own!
yes, we should definitely let the foxes guard the henhouse.
Well, the article is woefully alcking in details and it sounds like the crux of the case was the profound dehydration that led to stroke. How this happened isn’t described. Maybe he screwed up. Or maybe the guy got septic. And were there anyresidents or was it just staffed by attendings?
Who knows.
But anon 9:08 has to realize that we see patients like this ALL THE TIME!!! And the reason he went south and the others don’t isn’t solely because of malpractice. Its because of something we dont want to acknowledge… BAD LUCK!!!
If it’s all luck, why are we paying physicians?
I didn’t say it was ALL luck… I said that BAD luck can be the deciding factor, even when the physician does everything right!
The other 99% of cases obviously require the skill of a physicina. But it isn’t foolproof.
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