Dallas Fort Worth Injury Lawyer Blog
A Tennessee jury has awarded a $12 million medical malpractice judgment against a prominent local doctor after a procedure intended to diagnose bowel problems left a young woman so brain damaged she cannot care for herself.
Attorneys for the plaintiff, 33-year-old Kristen Freeman, said they believe the judgment, is “one of the largest” to ever be awarded in Hamilton County with regard to allegations of improper medical care.
“It is very, very difficult to get a judgment against a doctor,” according to one of the lawyers, an Atlanta personal injury trial lawyer who helped represent Ms. Freeman along with two other attorneys. “People don’t like to find doctors at fault.”
The jury, found that Dr. Michael Goodman, a gastroenterologist, was only 51 percent at fault for the incident that led to Ms. Freeman’s permanent brain damage. So Ms. Freeman is allowed to collect only $6.12 million, according to the jury’s decision.
The lawyer said he felt like the judgment was a “compromise” precisely because of people’s conflicted feelings when it comes to finding doctors at fault for the care they provide.
“Dr. Goodman contended that Ms. Freeman should have known on her own to go to the emergency room” when she started vomiting and experiencing pain almost immediately after having a colonoscopy and endoscopy done.
According to Ms. Freeman’s attorneys, their client had been having bowel trouble for years. Ms. Freeman scheduled an appointment with Dr. Goodman for April 27, 2006, to have a colonoscopy and upper endoscopy, procedures used to diagnose diseases of the small intestine and colon.
It later was revealed that the endoscopy had caused a tear in the area of her small intestine just below her stomach.
By 5 p.m. the same day as the procedures, Ms. Freeman was experiencing extreme pain and constantly throwing up, according to the lawsuit. She called Dr. Goodman’s office, her attorneys said, but was only given a prescription for anti-nausea medication, the lawsuit states.
The next morning, her attorneys say, Ms. Freeman called Dr. Goodman’s office to complain again of her symptoms, which ultimately led to his recommendation that she go to the hospital to have X-rays performed.
As a direct result of the complications of the endoscopy and colonoscopy, the lawsuit states, Ms. Freeman suffered cardiopulmonary arrest and severe brain damage “which has resulted in permanent and total disability,” the lawsuit says.
Dr. Goodman should have known that vomiting and pain are symptoms of the most dangerous complication of a perforated intestine, which can come from a colonoscopy or endoscopy procedure, Ms. Freeman’s attorneys contend.
If you or a family member has been injured because of the fault of someone else; by negligence, personal injury, slip and fall, car accident, medical malpractice, trucking accident, drunk driving, bad product, toxic injury etc then please contact the Fort Worth Texas Medical Malpractice Attorney Dr. Shezad Malik. For a no obligation, free case analysis, please call 817-255-4001 or Contact Me Online.