What do you think of the $55 million settlement in the Johns Hopkins malpractice case?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is a reasonable amount of time to walk thru the front door in an emergency C-section situation and get paperwork, a doctor, a room for the surgery, and anesthesia? Was the baby past the stage where the doctor could give her something to slow things down like when someone is going into pre-term labor? I can't see awarding $55 million unless it is gross negligence on the part of the hospital. I could see myself going with an award in a scenario where the hospital had all the info, was monitoring the baby, and chose to go with a vaginal birth instead of a c-section even though there was some medical piece of info that would make the c-section less risky for the baby.

If you fly through the door of our hospital "needing" a C section, the fastest it could happen is in about 30 minutes, assuming the elevators are working, but considering they got the call from the ambulance, they could have got her to the OR less time. HOWEVER, and evaluation SHOULD take place. There have been stat C sections on women who are not even pregnant. No kidding, and for that you also get sued.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is a reasonable amount of time to walk thru the front door in an emergency C-section situation and get paperwork, a doctor, a room for the surgery, and anesthesia? Was the baby past the stage where the doctor could give her something to slow things down like when someone is going into pre-term labor? I can't see awarding $55 million unless it is gross negligence on the part of the hospital. I could see myself going with an award in a scenario where the hospital had all the info, was monitoring the baby, and chose to go with a vaginal birth instead of a c-section even though there was some medical piece of info that would make the c-section less risky for the baby.

If you fly through the door of our hospital "needing" a C section, the fastest it could happen is in about 30 minutes, assuming the elevators are working, but considering they got the call from the ambulance, they could have got her to the OR less time. HOWEVER, and evaluation SHOULD take place. There have been stat C sections on women who are not even pregnant. No kidding, and for that you also get sued.

Plus this woman likely arrived with NO lab work, (no blood type, no coags, no CBC), no fetal monitor tracing, nothing. They would have had to send blood work, establish that the baby was even in distress (at least 20 minutes on the fetal monitor), etc. etc. etc. I've worked in L&D and received patients from unlicensed midwives. They are literally "dump and runs". You are given a patient and NOTHING else.

[Anonymous]

I am a doctor and have been in practice for 20 + years. This case is baffling.

I am trying to figure out what the parents were thinking when they decided to do a home birth. Did they think that if problems came up they would just rush off to the hospital and everything would be taken care of?
To me, anyone should know that the ambulance could get caught in traffic, or there could be a bad storm making roads impassible, or the darn phone does not work. I guess in those cases others would have been sued including the National Weather Service.
Why did they cut it so close? Even if she needed a c section, no one wants to do a rush and cut. Those are dangerous, more anesthetic complications, more infection, more technical mistakes, and so on. Are these the kinds of people who just think that some safety net is always going to open up for them after they take ridiculous chances with life?
I had the impression that most home birthers were willing to accept all of the potential problems, kind of leaving it all up to the almighty and so on.
This couple seems to be immature.

On the legal side, the settlement is way too large. You can bet that we will see a temporary bump in C sections in Maryland for the next few months. This stuff scares doctors. These cases are career enders.
Anyway, she should have lost some points for being at home. If this all occurred in a hospital, the most I have seen is $20 milllion. But this was partly her own doing. For all we know, the brain damage could have occurred at home. We won't know since they probably weren't monitoring a darn thing. Assuming there was malpractice, I would give her at most $1 million.

Mammas tell your sons and daughters not to grow up to be OBGYNs.

[Anonymous]

Anyway, she should have lost some points for being at home... But this was partly her own doing. For all we know, the brain damage could have occurred at home. We won't know since they probably weren't monitoring a darn thing.

It appears as if the jury heard not one thing about what happened before the midwife dumped them at the hospital.

[Anonymous]

My own OBGYN decided to no longer deliver because of the exorbitant cost of malpractice insurance. I can not believe it has not yet been mentioned here that this case DOES in fact affect each and every one of us. THIS is how insurance goes throughout the roof. This is exactly how. This woman put her baby's life in danger, no one else. This is basic responsibility that no one knows or accepts the meaning of anymore and we as a society pay. No lie. This is despicable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yet birth defect rates are not decreasing, although c-section rates have skyrocketed. Maybe people should accept that there are no guarantees in life, and especially in childbirth.

I think this gets to the heart of the matter, and I think it's too frightening for most people to accept. I couldn't shake a chilling feeling throughout my pregnancy that something was looming; we did both survive thanks to a c section. We otherwise would have been in a very bad place.

No one wants to hear what you're saying, though all expectant mothers and fathers should.

This is very true. We all want to believe that if everyone does everything right, we will all have healthy children. The reality is is that we really don't have much control at all. We can have the best prenatal care, eat and drink all the right foods, etc have all the best prenatal tests (and even terminate and try again if we have a bad result) and we STILL are not guaranteed a healthy child. Many of us with seemingly healthy babies and toddlers right now will find out down the road that our child has some health or learning issue or another...hopefully minor but for some of us, it may be major, life-altering or even life-threatening. Some of our children will be permanently injured due to accidents. Many mental illnesses dont appear until puberty or young adulthood . We will never be able to test and predict every problem. Parenting is NOT for the feint of heart.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, it has been observed that juries often think that someone with deep pockets should pay when a baby is injured, whether or not the party in question actually did anything wrong. When the jurors are asked, after the trial, they will often admit it.

As others have observed, people also do not want to believe that bad things happen to people without someone being at fault.

Add these two together, and this is why the cost of insurance for OB's is though the roof.

I don't know what the judge was thinking when he disallowed the evidence re: the midwife. I'm not a malpractice attorney, but that point does seem ripe for appeal.

[Anonymous]

I flatlined during my c-section due to a medical error. While I am not happy with the anesthesiologist, I would not sue her. Doctors are human too. Sh*t happens. (This is what I arrived at through months of therapy, btw.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I flatlined during my c-section due to a medical error. While I am not happy with the anesthesiologist, I would not sue her. Doctors are human too. Sh*t happens. (This is what I arrived at through months of therapy, btw.)

Did you have lasting damage? I can see not suing her if you didn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is a reasonable amount of time to walk thru the front door in an emergency C-section situation and get paperwork, a doctor, a room for the surgery, and anesthesia? Was the baby past the stage where the doctor could give her something to slow things down like when someone is going into pre-term labor? I can't see awarding $55 million unless it is gross negligence on the part of the hospital. I could see myself going with an award in a scenario where the hospital had all the info, was monitoring the baby, and chose to go with a vaginal birth instead of a c-section even though there was some medical piece of info that would make the c-section less risky for the baby.

If you fly through the door of our hospital "needing" a C section, the fastest it could happen is in about 30 minutes, assuming the elevators are working, but considering they got the call from the ambulance, they could have got her to the OR less time. HOWEVER, and evaluation SHOULD take place. There have been stat C sections on women who are not even pregnant. No kidding, and for that you also get sued.

I agree with the bolded part, they could have had her on the table in 15 minutes (and I know of cases when that happened). Regardless of the attempting home birth, part, she's not the first woman to arrive to L&D in the last stage of labor.

C sections on non-pregnant women is gross negligence. It takes a few seconds to confirm fetal heart rate with a doppler; or get an U/S machine in there to see the fetus!.

[Anonymous]

I really hope the hospital wins on appeal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a doctor and have been in practice for 20 + years. This case is baffling.

I am trying to figure out what the parents were thinking when they decided to do a home birth. Did they think that if problems came up they would just rush off to the hospital and everything would be taken care of?
To me, anyone should know that the ambulance could get caught in traffic, or there could be a bad storm making roads impassible, or the darn phone does not work. I guess in those cases others would have been sued including the National Weather Service.
Why did they cut it so close? Even if she needed a c section, no one wants to do a rush and cut. Those are dangerous, more anesthetic complications, more infection, more technical mistakes, and so on. Are these the kinds of people who just think that some safety net is always going to open up for them after they take ridiculous chances with life?
I had the impression that most home birthers were willing to accept all of the potential problems, kind of leaving it all up to the almighty and so on.
This couple seems to be immature..

But it was not an unassisted home birth
As a doctor you surely know more about home births than others.
Did you know that in some European countries a home birth is the recommended way
Only in some cases is a hospital birth recommended.

[Anonymous]

My friends neighbor gave birth at home last night. He called me to vent because she was screaming so loud and he could't sleep. Why would you do a home birth in a row house? He is a great guy too, he even statrted a lactation program for his employees but this really tested his limits. He had to fo to work and couldn't sleep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My friends neighbor gave birth at home last night. He called me to vent because she was screaming so loud and he could't sleep. Why would you do a home birth in a row house? He is a great guy too, he even statrted a lactation program for his employees but this really tested his limits. He had to fo to work and couldn't sleep.

It is too bad that he lost sleep one night. His neighbor is not going to be birthing every day. It is not a big deal.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why people who birth at home claim to understand the risks, but then sue as soon as they fall on the wrong side of the stats.

I'm all for people taking charge of their health and making informed decisions, but why sue when a known risk happens? Surely, she had to have understood there are significant risks in a twin home birth.

I've had natural births....in a hospital. It's not as bad as militant home birth advocates make it out to be.