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A man bleeds to death while taking medication prescribed to him by his primary care doctor.
Would you like to learn what this is about? Come join me as I share with you this remarkable
story. Hi. I'm Gerry Oginski. I'm a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial
lawyer practicing law in the state of New York. The patient was told that he had a gastric
ulcer. And as a result, his primary care doctor was giving him medication to take and he was
taking it over the course of 2 or 3 months. Until one day, the patient woke up in agonizing
pain. He was in excruciating pain. He was vomiting coffee grinds, what looked like coffee
grinds. His wife immediately calls the ambulance. He dies before he gets to the hospital. An
autopsy confirms that the patient died of what's known as a 'ruptured gastric ulcer.'
One of the key issues in the case is whether this particular physician told the patient
about the risks associated with taking this particular medication. And if he told him,
would the patient then have opted, "You know what? I don't want this medication. I want
a different medication." So here we have finger pointing going on between the pharmaceutical
company and the doctor who's prescribing this medication. The pharmaceutical company says,
"Hey. We only provide information to the doctors." The doctors turn around and say, "Hey. We
only get the information from the pharmaceutical company. So how can we give the patient information
if you, the pharmaceutical company, don't tell us everything that we need to?" In the
insert that goes into the medication package that goes into the physicians, it indicates
what the risks are and what the benefits are to the patient by taking this particular medication.
It is the doctor's job then to go ahead and explain those risks to the patient. Now many
times these doctors do not tell the patient all of the risks associated with taking these
medications. And their argument is, "Listen, if we did that we'd be here for hours and
hours every day just explaining risks to our patients about medication, about different
procedures and we'd never get anything done." So we try and tell them the most important
risks. Well the problem is telling them the most important risks don't help when the patient
suffers one of the lesser known risks. Because if the patient had known about the lesser
known risks, then there's a very good chance were they would have said, "Listen. I want
to take a medication that doesn't have those types of risks. I may be at risk for developing
a ruptured gastric ulcer and bleed to death." Which is exactly what happened to this gentleman.
So why do I share this great information with you? I share it with you just to give an insight
and an understanding into what occurred when we were able to show successfully that the
doctor failed to give this patient the required information so that he could make an intelligent
and educated decision about whether or not to take this particular medication. You know,
in all likelihood, you have questions or concerns about your own particular matter. Well if
your matter happened here in the state of New York and you do have legal questions,
what I encourage you to do is pick up the phone and call me. I can answer your legal
questions. This is something that I do every single day and I'd love to talk to you. You
can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at Gerry@Oginski-law.com. That's it for today's
quick video. I'm Gerry Oginski, have a wonderful day!