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Do you know what sepsis is? Come join me as I share with you what sepsis is. Hi. I’m
Gerry Oginski. I’m a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial attorney practicing
law here in the state of New York. Sepsis is, in its most basic definition, a massive
infection in your body. Now how can that occur and why does that matter to you? What can
occur is let’s say you have a surgical procedure and the doctor inadvertently injures the bowel,
the colon, and doesn’t recognize it. What then happens is your feces (the stool) will
then leak out into your belly, into your abdomen. Now what can happen then? What can happen
is that the stool is not supposed to be in your belly and as a result it becomes an irritant
and winds up getting infected. And once you have an infection in your abdomen that can
spread throughout your entire body. And when that happens, you can get extremely sick.
Now, in cases involving a failure to diagnose (let’s say) bowel perforation, the reason
why these are so deadly is because oftentimes the doctor doesn’t recognize that there’s
been a bowel perforation. And then all of sudden within in days – within hours – the
patient starts to get worse and worse. They start to get extremely sick. And then, if
they are in the hospital, they start to do various tests to find out why it is the patient
is getting so sick. By the time they find out why the patient has gotten so sick, it
may be too late and the patient may die. And many times we’ll get calls from patients
whose family members have died saying “Listen, my loved one just died. I’ve been told by
the medical examiner that they died of sepsis. What does that mean?” Well, sepsis means
they had a massive infection that couldn’t be controlled. And in each of these cases,
the real question is if this condition had been recognized and treated as soon as it
occurred, would the outcome be any different? And in many instances, the answer is yes because
if they recognized the bowel perforation had occurred during the course of surgery, they
could have repaired it right then and there. They could have irrigated and washed the patient
out of whatever contaminants were in there. And then they could prophylactically treat
the patient, meaning they can give the patient antibiotics right away in order to prevent
the infection from getting worse. So why do I tell you about this? Because chances are
you have questions and concerns about what sepsis is and how it may have caused or contributed
to your loved one’s injuries or death. And if your matter happened in the state of New
York, what I encourage you to do is pick up the phone and call me. I answer legal questions
like yours every single day. You can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at lawmed10@yahoo.com.
I’m Gerry Oginski, here in New York. Thanks for watching.