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Welcome, come on in. My name is Gerry Oginski; I’m a New York medical malpractice and personal
injury trial lawyer practicing law here in the state of New York. Today’s video tip
is how a failure to diagnose a brain tumor costs a doctor and a hospital $1 million dollars.
Well what happened? Well, this young woman was in an accident and she was taken to a
hospital emergency room here in New York and she was given an MRI. And the MRI was correctly
read. The doctor - the radiologist - actually read that there was a mass in this woman’s
brain. Well what happened? You would think that that information would then get relayed
to the emergency room doctor or to the patient somehow. Well here’s where somebody dropped
the ball. And that’s why this patient never was notified that she had a tumor growing
in her brain that could have been removed before any permanent damage happened. About
7 months after this woman had been in this emergency room and told that she was fine
after a few hours, she started to develop problems and loss of her eyesight. And she
went to her eye doctor and the eye doctor also told her “Nothing to worry about you’re
just getting older, come back to me in a few more weeks and we let’s check you out.”
She did that and her vision continued to deteriorate. It wasn’t until a few months after that
the doctor finally said “You know what. I think we have to send you off for an MRI
or a CAT scan. Let’s check it out.” And when she had as CAT scan - no when she had
a follow up MRI - it turns out that there was this huge mass growing in her brain that
was compressing and putting pressure on the optic nerve. That’s why she couldn’t see
and why it was getting worse and worse over time. So despite the fact this woman went
for surgery shortly after being told she had this brain tumor, the permanent damage occurred
and she lost total vision in her eye because that mass – that tumor - cut off the blood
supply to her optic nerve. And because of that she lost total vision and no longer was
able to see. If she had had surgery shortly after that original MRI in that emergency
room, this woman would have had her eyesight and nothing bad would have happened to her.
Because this was a benign tumor - it was not malignant. And that’s how my client was
able to recover compensation of $1 million dollars because of the failure by a doctor
and a hospital to recognize and give the patient the information that she had a brain tumor.
I’m Gerry Oginski. I want to thank you for joining me here in New York. Have a great
day. By the way, if you have additional questions about medical malpractice or personal injury
cases here in the state of New York, then I encourage you to explore my website its
Oginski-law.com. You can see the URL right – here it is – right below here. And if
you have legal questions, then I urge you to pick up the phone and call me since I can
answer your legal questions. You can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at lawmed10@yahoo.com.
I’m Gerry Oginski, thanks for joining me here in New York for a few minutes of your
time. Have a great day.