In mid-December 2023, a New York medical malpractice jury awarded the estate of a woman $5 million and her husband $2 million against her rehabilitation attending physician who was treating her after surgery on her left leg in 2014. The 2014 surgery was necessary to treat the woman’s left femur fracture that she had suffered as a result of a fall in June 2014. The surgery was an open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) during which a gamma nail and an intramedullary rod were implanted.
The jury found the other named defendants were not negligent and therefore found in their favor.
As a result of the responsible defendant’s negligence that resulted in another fracture, the woman required a second surgery several weeks after the original surgery. The woman died at age 77 in November 2020 from unrelated causes. The New York medical malpractice lawsuit was filed in 2015.
The New York medical malpractice lawsuit alleged that while the woman was under the care of the defendant attending physician at the rehabilitation hospital, she complained multiple times about increasing pain and her decreasing mobility. It was not until she had been in rehab for two weeks that an x-ray was taken that showed that the implanted intramedullary rod had migrated through the top of the woman’s left femur and that the nail had eroded and was protruding. Five days after the woman was discharged, she underwent hip replacement surgery at another hospital following a finding that her left hip had fractured in several places.
The woman’s New York medical malpractice lawsuit alleged that the woman suffered a prolonged rehabilitation after the second surgery, resulting in “extreme pain, suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, mental anguish, depression and emotional distress.”
The defendant rehabilitation physician was Board-certified in 2014 and apparently is currently in practice at Hampton Roads Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine in Williamsburg, Virginia. His profile on the Virginia Board of Medicine’s website does not show any disciplinary history or any prior history of medical malpractice settlements or judgments. The Hampton Roads Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine’s website states that the defendant physician “completed a general surgery internship at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, New York and residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. He completed his training in interventional spine and sports medicine with a fellowship at Alabama Orthopaedic Spine and Sports Medicine in Birmingham, AL. He has multiple publications in peer reviewed medical journals [and] is board certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation [and] specializes in disorders of the spine, musculoskeletal system, and sports related injuries.”
If you or a loved one suffered harm due to rehabilitation negligence in New York or in another U.S. state, you should promptly find a New York medical malpractice attorney or a medical malpractice attorney in your state who may investigate your rehabilitation medical malpractice claim for you and represent you or your loved one in a rehab malpractice case, if appropriate.
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