300 Cases Filed Against One Cardiologist

Nearly every doctor will receive at least one malpractice claim against them at some point during their career. The chances go up if the doctor is a specialist. But when 300 people file, serious questions must be raised about their practice.

A cardiologist in Indiana is facing this problem. A trial is scheduled to begin next week for one of the plaintiffs. The plaintiff claims the cardiologist implanted a pacemaker in her husband that became infected. The infection wasn’t appropriately treated, nor was the husband’s primary care physician notified of the infection or the pacemaker implant. The man eventually died from his injuries.

One thing that will weigh heavily against the doctor in the case is unrelated litigation regarding the unnecessary implantation of medical devices. Nearly 300 patients have filed complaints saying they received open heart surgery and medical devices that were unnecessary. In Indiana, malpractice claims must be heard by a state review board before they can go to trial. At least two of the people filing a malpractice claim have received the go-ahead to go to trial, but those won’t happen until at least 2017.

The doctor in question has retired from medicine, but the sheer number of lawsuits making their way against him might make his retirement a lot less enjoyable than he anticipated. Cardiologists make a lot of money, and some do feel pressure due to greed or from their supervising hospitals to push for procedures and implants that may be unnecessary just so they can receive a larger payment from insurers. Some of these procedures may try to pass under the radar of defensive medicine, but there’s nothing defensive about major surgery.

Have you found yourself pressured to receive a medical procedure that you felt was unnecessary? Get a second opinion, preferably from a doctor that isn’t in the same hospital network as your current doctor. If you get a procedure and find out later it was unnecessary, seek the help of Bottar Law Attorneys to see if a medical malpractice suit may be in your best interest.