Is a Delay in Treatment Medical Malpractice?

Pennsylvania Medical Malpractice Lawyer Explains

Video Transcript:

Daniel Jeck: 

If there are mistakes that are made, bad mistakes, substandard mistakes that are made in reading reports and getting back test results, that can then result in a subsequent delay in starting treatment.

Tom Mustin: 

When you think of medical malpractice, you probably think of harm caused by something a doctor did. Well, what if an injury is caused by a delay in proper treatment? We're gonna talk to attorney Daniel Jeck about that on today's episode of, Ask The Lawyer. Dan, thanks for joining us.

Daniel Jeck: 

Thank you. It's nice to be here.

Tom Mustin: 

Great to have you. So in your experience, what kind of delays of treatment have you seen that have actually harmed patients? And can you give us a few examples of your cases?

Daniel Jeck: 

Sure. So I've been practicing medical malpractice law for nearly 30 years here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. And over the course of those decades, I've handled many cases. And predominantly the cases involved, what we call delay in diagnosesis, whether it's in an emergency room or, while a patient's recovering from surgery, there are many different types of cases where you can have a delay in making a diagnosis, which results in a delay in treatment.

Tom Mustin: 

I wanted to ask you though, how does a delay in treatment actually constitute medical malpractice and what are the parameters there?

Daniel Jeck: 

Sure. So it depends upon the... Every case has a different set of facts. One type of case I've handled is a case where there's a delay in diagnosing a postoperative infection. Client goes to the hospital, has bowel surgery and is in the hospital for a few days afterwards. And there were signs and symptoms of an infection, fever, high white count, drainage, pain. CAT Scan show collections of fluid. These are all what we call signs and symptoms of infection. When the nurses or doctors who are taking care of you after a surgery don't pick up on these red flags and place you on antibiotics or take you back to surgery, an infection can occur and serious injuries and damages can occur from an untreated infection before it's too late. And that's what we call delay in diagnosis of infection.

Tom Mustin: 

Okay.

Daniel Jeck: 

There are also other types of cases, where there are delays in diagnosesis can happen over the course of a few hours in an emergency room. Patient comes in with chest pain. First thing you should do immediately is do an EKG. If there's a delay in doing an EKG, and there's a delay in getting the patient into the cath lab, for instance, a heart attack can occur before treatment ensues. And again, that would be a delay in diagnosis. And in terms of what constitutes a malpractice case. What we say is, there are three ingredients to every malpractice case. There's what we call negligence, which is the bad medicine, the poor care, that's medical negligence, that's substandard care. The second part of the malpractice case is causation or the link between the medical negligence and any type of harm the patient has suffered as a result of the delay. So whatever you claim to be the bad mistake or the bad medicine, that needs to be the cause of the harm. So that's causation. If something else is the cause of the harm, even if somebody did something very wrong, you may not have a case. And then the third ingredient for every malpractice case is the injuries which are covered by whatever law of the state that you're located in. We happen to be in Pennsylvania and there are various injuries that we can claim in our cases.

Tom Mustin: 

And when you talk about these cases, there's a standard of care that needs to be put into place here. Who decides what that standard of care is? Is that the attorneys?

Daniel Jeck: 

No. So the standard of care in the states I've practiced in are really... It's developed and it changes from over time to time. But the standard of care is really what 99.9% of the doctors who are practicing reasonably in that state believe is the standard of care. So there is no national standard of care. In cases that we bring, we bring, we have to have medical experts support our cases. Not only do they support our cases at the beginning of the case, but they're the experts, the physicians that come in and give testimony at trial, they are physicians from different specialties. It's up to them to describe what the standard of care is and how in our medical malpractice cases the defendant doctor deviated or fell below the standard of care.

Tom Mustin: 

You know, in a lot of these cases, we're talking about delayed diagnosis. What are the major causes of delayed diagnosis and what can the consequences be?

Daniel Jeck: 

Sure. So in the delay in diagnosis cases, they happen for a variety of reasons. In my experience, one of the main reasons why there can be delay is because the people that are caring for patients in general, when they are not experienced or when they're residents or they're doctors in training or nursing staff, people that don't have a lot of experience in a particular issue they usually wait too long before they make a call. The people that... Practitioners, healthcare providers that are not experienced often will wait and wait and wait, because they're not sure themselves, they lack the confidence in making a call one way or the other about something that may be going wrong. There's a reluctance sometimes to make that call and to be aggressive and address something and that results in a delay. Sometimes there are test results that are missed and that results in a delay. Case in point is, case I have just placed into suit involving a young man who's driving down the road.

Daniel Jeck: 

All of a sudden, he's 24-years-old, all of a sudden he has weakness on one side of his body, goes to the emergency room right away. And everyone thinks he's having a stroke. Appropriately, a CAT Scan is performed, but the CAT Scan is misread. And because the CAT Scan is misread as normal, when it wasn't normal, there was a delay, a consequential delay in taking the next steps that would've been necessary to address that stroke. There are certain medications you can give a person who's having a stroke to lessen the consequences of a stroke. There are certain procedures like a thrombectomy that you can do surgically that can address a stroke before somebody becomes completely debilitated. If there are mistakes that are made, bad mistakes, substandard mistakes that are made in reading reports and getting back test results, that can then result in a subsequent delay in starting treatment.

Tom Mustin: 

Great example there. I want to ask you also, does lack of insurance ever go into delay in diagnosis?

Daniel Jeck: 

Well, that's an interesting question. I don't know if there's, there's no statistics that I can... There's no statistics that I could put my thumb on that would say that lack of insurance leads to that. As everyone knows, people are to be treated the same way and receive proper and reasonable care regardless of their insurance status. In my travels, unfortunately I've seen times where you may be able to make an argument that someone's inability to pay or lack of insurance or welfare status may have, may be related to some type of delay in treatment. But I wouldn't say that as a general rule. I don't think that that's actually the case.

Daniel Jeck: 

I think that people try and do the right thing. Where I see delays in diagnosis, where I see mistakes, is people that are inexperienced, things that happen in the middle of the night or on the weekend when there's, maybe there's understaffing. And frankly, doctors that are afraid to pull the trigger when they should do so. They wait too long and then bad things happen. That's what I see.

Tom Mustin: 

Well, Dan, a lot of great information. We really appreciate you joining us today.

Daniel Jeck: 

Okay. Thank you very much, Tom. Nice to meet you.

Tom Mustin: 

You too. And that's gonna do it for this episode of, Ask The Lawyer. My guest has been Daniel Jeck. If you want to ask Daniel a question about your situation, call the number you see on the screen. Thanks for watching. I'm Tom Mustin for Ask The Lawyer.

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