A shocking medical malpractice case was revealed recently, and the “shock” has nothing to do with a medical error or a terrible mistake that caused physical or medical harm to the patient. Instead, the allegations involved in this case revolve around disparaging and insulting comments that an anesthesiologist and numerous other medical professionals made to, and about, the patient while he was sedated for a colonoscopy.
So how did these insults become part of public record? Well, the patient brought a recorder with him to document the pre-op instructions the medical professionals were discussing. Before he could hit the “stop” button, he was sedated, and the recorder captured the entire procedure.
Included in this recording are comments made by the anesthesiologist that imply she wanted to hit the patient. There are also numerous comments made on the recording that demonstrate the medical professionals were mocking other potential medical conditions of the patient, and making other conditions up to insult the patient. They also conspired to ignore the patient after the procedure was done and to delay treatment or make up a false diagnosis just to spite him.
It’s all as terrible as it sounds, and when the patient heard the recording, he knew what he had to do. He filed a medical malpractice lawsuit that was grounded in defamation and the case was recently completed. The man was awarded $500,000 for the despicable actions of the medical professionals that were treating him, and the case is somewhat of a landmark, given how rare it is for medical commentary during sedation to be involved in a medical malpractice case.
Source: Washington Post, “Anesthesiologist trashes sedated patient — and it ends up costing her,” Tom Jackman, June 23, 2015
