Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Tagged with medical malpractice nyc

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The New York City hospital where the deadly medical error occurredA mother about to give birth died from medical malpractice in a New York City Hospital.  On July 2020, Sha Asia Temple, a 26 year old pregnant woman was at Woodhull Medical Center about to give birth to her daughter. Dr Dmitry Shelchkov, the anesthesiologist who was in charge of giving her the epidural inserted the catheter to deliver the anesthesia 13 inches deep in her back instead of the recommended 4 inches and administered a full dose of anesthesia neglecting to first administer a test dose and check on the patient before administering the full dose. As a result the anesthesia liquid was injected into the cerebrospinal fluid. The patient complained that she could not breath anymore and died shortly after. According to the federal hospital inspection report, a doctor who rushed to the rescue screamed at Dr. Schelchkov “I can’t believe this is happening again!”. Sha Asia Temple died but her baby, Khloe, survived.

The causes of the death of Ms. Temple were only recently made public and the investigation report indicates that over the two years preceding the death of Ms. Temple, 6 patients in  labor at Woodhull Medical Center “suffered adverse outcomes related to the administration of anesthesia” and Dr Shlchkov was involved in most of them. The same errors of pushing the epidural  needle too deep and mixing the anesthesia with cerebrospinal fluid as well as not proceeding to a test before administrating the full dose were reported. Despite the obvious pattern, the hospital did not take any measures to monitor the doctor who was finally stripped of his medical license in 2021.

Epidural complications are rare and while epidural complications started to occur regularly at Woodhull Medical Hospital, the system was so dysfunctional that cases went unreported. It took the death of a mother for the administrators of the hospital to notice the pattern.

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NYC Medical Malpractice Attorneys Jeff Bloom and David LarkinOur NY Medical Malpractice attorneys Jeffrey Bloom and David Larkin settled a wrongful death case for $3 Million for the death of a man overdosed with narcotics

Our client, a man in his fifties, walked into the emergency department of his local hospital with complaints of abdominal pain.  He was dead within hours.  He left behind a wife and three grown sons.

The nurse receiving the telephone order from the pain management specialist transcribed it incorrectly and raised the dose for Dilaudid to a deadly amount

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hospital readmission can be negligenceExcessive patient readmissions is usually a sign of hospital negligence. Not only can it worsen the patient’s condition and extend recovery time but it also increases the patient’s bill.

In order to curb readmission rates and make sure hospitals pay more attention to patients after their departure, the Hospital Readmission Program (HRRP) was created in 2010 as part of the Affordable Care Act. It took effect in October 2012 and since then, bad players with high readmission rates are being penalized by Medicare and get their payment for each of their Medicare patients reduced by up to 3%.

A total of 3,046 hospitals in the country are included in this program while hospitals treating children, veterans and psychiatric  patients are excluded.

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OxyContin_branded_oxycodone_10mg_OC_sideA Staten Island doctor committed gross medical malpractice by illegally prescribing massive quantities of oxicodone pills and asking some of his patients for sexual favors in return. 65 year old Joseph Santiamo, a geriatric care physician whose New York State License was recently suspended, pleaded guilty in front of New Jersey US District Judge Michael A. Shipp to illegally prescribing more than 65,000 pills to 7 patients and to solicit sex in exchange for prescriptions from most of them. Two patients were prescribed a total of 14,000 pills and another one was prescribed 9,000 pills.

“Even more egregiously, (he) solicited sexual favors from certain patients who were struggling with substance abuse in exchange for writing them additional opioid prescriptions,” said New Jersey U.S. Attorney Craig Carpentito. “Instead of getting help from their doctor, they were drawn deeper into the cycle of drug abuse.”

Santiamo was arrested during a major law enforcement sweep in the North East during which 54 people were busted including 15 doctors. The doctor was “treating patients” who lived in New Jersey, Upstate New York, Pennsylvania and Florida. While the doctor was supposedly a geriatric specialist, his patients were all younger than 40 years old.  The doctor admitted that he solicited at least 5 of them for sexual favors. From January 1 2012 to May 3rd 2018, the “patients” would visit the doctor in his office and have sexual encounters with him in his office in exchange for oxycodone prescriptions. When he was asked by investigators how the sexual relationships started, the doctor replied “They had a need”.

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Best Law Firms - Standard BadgeFor the 11th consecutive year, our New York Personal Injury Law Firm was named a Best Law Firm 2021 by U.S. News – Best Lawyers®. The firm was also named

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SUNY-DownstateTwo top level transplant surgeons are alleging that they have been fired by SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn after they raised the alarm on gross medical malpractice occurring in the cardiothoracic surgery and cardiothoracic intensive care units.

Dr Gruesser, a top transplant surgeon who operated on Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford after she was shot and saved her life, was hired by SUNY as Downstate’s Chair of the Department and Chief of Transplant. When hiring him SUNY’s goal was that he would turn Downstate’s Cardiothoracic Program and General Surgery Residency program around.

During his tenure, DR Gruesser and his team uncovered several serious patients safety issues including:

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Our form was named Best Law Frim 2020Our NYC Personal Injury Law Firm was named a 2020 Best Law Firm by U.S. News and Best Lawyers for the 10th consecutive year and we would like to congratulate our attorneys and staff for their continuous effort and great work.

Also for the 10th consecutive year, Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf was named

  • A Tier 1 Firm for Personal Injury Litigation  – Plaintiff in New York City
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New York State hospitals and especially New York City hospitals and nursing homes are the institutions the most affected in the country by Candida Auris, a dangerous fungal infection resistant to most medications. The disease already killed a patient at Mount Sinai hospital last year and 309 cases have been confirmed in New York and 109 in New Jersey out of a total of 587 for the entire country.

Hospitals that have been contaminated by Candida Auris germs report that it is very difficult to eradicate it in the facility. It takes special cleaning equipment. Sometime tiles have to be ripped of the walls to get rid of the bug.

Candida Auris a hospital superbug invades New York

If  a loved one is in a nursing home or at the hospital ask if they had any cases of Candida Auris

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Kigs County Hospital has the highest number of wrongful death claims468 people died of medical malpractice in NYC’s public hospitals in the past 5 years according to a recent article in the New York Post.  Among all 11 HHC hospitals, Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn had the worst record. 91 claims of wrongful death related to medical malpractice were filed against the Brooklyn hospital between the beginning of 2014 and the end of 2018. Bellevue, a much larger city hospital located in Manhattan came second with 54 wrongful death claims filed against it during the same period.

The Post analysed City Comptroller data obtained through a Freedom of Information request and found that the city paid $34 million to 56 families in 2014. Among the cases closed, the Post found out that  some patients died in horrific conditions from gross medical malpractice committed by these hospitals. Among the most shocking were:

  • The wrongful death of a woman who died from organ failure after doctors at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn ignored her tuberculosis diagnosis and botched her treatment. Her family was awarded  $3.2 million, one of the largest amounts paid by HHC to the 56 families.
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FrostbiteAs New York hospitals are gearing up for an increased number of patients visiting the emergency room for cold related injuries it is important that physicians and nurses be up to date with proper management of cold injuries as medical malpractice such as failure to diagnose and timely treat systemic hypothermia can be fatal.

In a recent article published in Medscape, Blair Peters, MD (Resident Physician, Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine, Canada) and  Edward W Buchel, MD (Associate Professor of Surgery, Section of Plastic Surgery, University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine; Head, Consulting Staff, Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre, Canada) provide an in depth analysis of the various types of cold injuries and the most appropriate manner to treat them.

Systemic hypothermia needs immediate treatment