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How can I sue a doctor myself?
CyberMaster
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
Why can't I get a lawyer?
I am currently in some serious pain so below might be confusing or rambling?
In 1993 I was in a car accident and broke my neck, No Problem! because at 22 and even as a quad. I am still able to live by and care for myself. I got my BS in comp. science and created some internet businesses like my telephone company and domain name registrations with company and user web/email hosting, and would contract for businesses in need of getting their office computers installed/networked together and every one connected.
After 18 years I nicked my butt cheek on the steel edge of my push wheelchair. Being so active and up working sometimes into 2 days straight, especially when you only have the weekend to get into a clients building and complete a full network setup of their systems including dropping lines through walls if needed, I could not get the sore to heal, so, as I had done the same thing 12 years prior, I went to the same plastic surgeon that had done a surgery to close the dime sized hole on my butt cheek and to heal. The 1st time was a success but this second time he 'Butchered me', and left a piece of surgical gauze pad somewhere in the 18 inch cut he made. My original wound healed right up, but he didn't know about the gauze he sewed up in me, and so, after 5 weeks in that hospital having a serious infection of his cuts, he sent me off to a different hospital to die. At the second hospital the doctor found and removed the gauze left sewn in me from the other doctor, removed it and I lived! After spending another month in the death hospital I was sent home and made the first appointment to be 5 weeks later, for the original doctor that sewn the gauze in me, to fix not my original wound of which was now healed up, but fix the long from inside my buttocks cheek outside to below the hip, down to the top of the back of my knee, where because of the infection from the gauze, had left his cuts to the muscle, split apart, needing rejoining. A week before I was to go in for the doctors corrective surgery I was called and told that his schedule was off and I would need to re-schedule for the corrective surgery. This being 'put off' by the doctor happened 2 more times over the next 6 months, the 3rd time myself calling to verify for surgury the next week, the secretary said that she was sorry but, the doctor had been in a 'minor fender bender' the previous few days, and does not feel that he will be up to his full potential next week for sureury and asked again to call back and reschedule.
After being 'Blown Off' the 3rd time, 'I got the hint!'. I called a different plastic surgeon but was told I must have a referral first and so scheduled with the first wound doctor of whom did not give me a referral but instead tried selling me a hospital bed of which I absolutely do not want, don't need, it would not have anything to do with getting the other doctors butcher job corrected and healed because I never lay nor have ever slept on my back, and the bed would indeed make my life harder, from the freedom of my nice comfy queen size bed of where I can stretch and roll around easily as I have all of this time waiting to get a doctor to fix what the gauze doctor did to me, rolling so I have never yet developed a bed sore since I'm trapped in this bed 24/7 until fix completed. After seeing that wound doctor two more times with no results in getting a referral besides her every time trying to sell me a hospital bed, and after 6 other doctors later, I Finally got to see a new plastic surgeon, and as 'like all of the other doctors', he knows the original doctor that hurt me, he looked, 'Promised' he'd call me personally and let me know, but he nor his office has called yet. So, because of the 18-20 gash down my buttocks to above my backside knee, I can not get up whenever I need to pp, so the original gauze doctor left a catheter in me.
I am one of the very few lucky persons(if you call it that?), in that I feel everything, and can tell when I need to pp, and only go number 2 at my will, unlike the majority of quads of which have no control of either. A nurse over 3 different times, Ripped a cath from my bladder out. I have a witness with the 3rd month and worst , a 64 year old nurse saying 'Don't tell me how to do my job', 'here we go!' RRRIP! I called and reported this nurse to get a different, and the next nurse poked a hole between my hiney hole and groin that is not supposed to be there by pushing a cath through the ripped urethra out the backside skin. Having the nurse company supervisor visit because of the hole, I have her recorded stating that she remembers that the nurse originally ripped the cath out of me, but the nurse was never fired! Well, because of the always bleeding rip and now hole where there is not supposed to be one, I was forced to have a urologist do a surgery, cutting a hole under my belly button and inserting a catheter where instead of just going pp when I need to go, must have this ***horribly painfull*** hole under my belly that since the surgery, every morning, noon and all night is horrifically painful and as well, infected. Within the first month of having the surgery done, I had a bad infection and a severe amount of pain as to where I was having symptoms of an extreme pain issue call autonomic disreflexia, and so a visiting nurse was threatening me to call and go to the ER or else she was going to, so I went, and while in that hospital, a floating nurse messed up in that instead of taking a urine sample, drained the balloon that keeps the cath in my bladder, and the catheter fell out of me onto the floor. The ER doctor had the nerve to loudly clai,. 'why did you rip out your catheter!?'. Myself already being in extreme pain went off on the ER doctor, and his attitude changed to 'nice', they couldn't get the catheter back in, ended up admitting me upstairs for a day, and painfully putting the cath back into my groin, of which because of the nurses error, I had to go back to the same urologist a month later into the hospital to have re-surgery to put a fresh hole under my belly button, reinserting a catheter in that location. Afterwards, that urologists nurses kept hurting me every month during the catheter change in things like not getting the catheter in my bladder and then inflating an almost golf ball sized water ball, but instead several times inflated the water ball between my skin and bladder, of course with the visits being recorded, can hear me groaning and moaning, sniffling in pain, the discussions of blood gushing from my belly, the nurse directly denying me access to take photos, and on the last bad visit of them not getting the cath in, the nurse had a trainee try to do it, of whom failed, blood everywhere and the nurse recorded stating that she messed up and should have done it herself. Enough of the bad urologist and her bad nurses repeatedly hurting me, I had my full set of records sent from them to a new urologist.
The first catheter change went as smooth as it could go, but the second monthly cath change of what should have been less than a 5 minute exercise turned out to be a month of pure extra painful heck in that a different nurse had the wrong caths, couldn't get the cath in, brought me to a different section of the hospital of where they made me get onto a surgery table and a doctor did what they called a procedure. He inserted a camera inside between my belly and bladder. During that time he found and I saw and spoken about during audio recording of the procedure, all of the tissue trauma and that there are stitches left in me, that have most likely been partially causing the catheter changes to be blocked, the non stop since these surgeries infection because of a foreign body substance inside of me as well as because of the bad gauze doctor and me currently forced in this bed 24/7, 8 hours of which I have to spend laying on my belly rubbing and scrapping the stitches inside of me, until someone hopefully fixes the bad gauze doctors errors, the extreme agony and irritation of the wrong stitches used and still inside of me, has led me to attempting to get a doctor to take them out, but I can't yet get any doctor to do so. My current doctor said 'When a doctor learns that a different doctor has messed up, the doctor is not going to want to go behind the doctor that messed up.'. Why didn't this doctor tell me that when he first referred me to the finally gotten plastic surgeon of whom has still not called me back? There is soo much more to all of this, soo many other bad hospital visits, bad doctors and nurses, and I know I am was such an absolute fool to trust doctors and nurses and wait for help.
I've been trying to get a lawyer for the simplest fact that I found out 2 months ago a doctor used the wrong stitches and they are fact still in me and are the reason for a lot of past problems, constant infection and a whole lot of serious every moment, daily pain, but of 6 calls including 2 to the GA Bar ass., can't get a lawyer to take the case to sue at least the urologist.
What can I do?
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:bro:
You might want to try a legal aid clinic. A googling found a site with Georgia specific resources.
http://www.georgialegalaid.org/
Honestly, lawyers may look at your case as hard to win, and their compensation from a contingency case may be too low to be worth it. Also do you have an affidavit from another doctor that your doctor screwed up? Without that you're going to have a problem.
Also contingency lawyers are likely to be ambulance chasers, and the late night TV advertisement types. Larger law firms, or "the best attorneys" work on a fee basis and not a contingency basis.
Have you contacted the GA Medical board to register a complaint or find out how?
-Punishment?
-Money for medical expenses?
-Money for lost time/income?
-Money for emotional trauma?
-Prevent others from experiencing the same treatment?
-Information? (This is the most common reason people sue doctors. They want to know what happened and why. Bad outcomes tend to make people tight lipped.)
A law suit may satisfy some of those goals, but not all of them. Same for filing a complaint with the state board.
Also, who is it that you want to sue? You list a very large cast of characters.
Hi there. WOW! Surprised to see comments.
I know minimum specifically 6 recorded contacting. Most after asking why not?, state just their determination, but this weeks last lawyer stated:
'I thought about your situation and, this is not a case I can represent you on unfortunately.'
'Umm, ok,, is there a specific reason?'
'It just doesn't seem like something that, would ahh, ya know, request the records and go back all that time to look into.'
He then said to recall the GA Bar Association, and so I did two days ago, and am waiting for a return call.
Yeah your right and Thanks. My life has been completely taken away from me and I'm in solitary bedroom prison only seeing an aide for 45-90 minutes a day while she throws some slop at me, gives me my toothbrush, daily clean wash rags etc. etc. then splits. When you become down like this, you truly do find out whom your friends are when they are not there and you are all alone with not just pain from your belly, butt, leg and neck, but the stress, anger, hate, sadness, humiliation, and the friends are now, none.
Will definitely investigate.
How should I go about getting an affidavit from another doctor? Is the actual recording of the doctors voice telling his name and words while he found it with the camera in me during the 'minor procedure' good enough?
I really never asked any of the lawyers if they are contingency or fee based? I've not yet gotten to the part with any of them to ask the fees?
Who do you want to sue for what?
Don't take it as a lack of sympathy on my part. I think you're right to be upset about lots of things going on with your care but only someone familiar with the law could tell you how much of it is actionable.
Just as an example, when you say "wrong stitches". Do you know what they used versus what the standard would have been? You're going to have to be very specific about what thing you want resolved and how you want to resolve them. As others have said, you need to itemize your complaints and figure out what you want to accomplish.
Just going by your post you definitely need a lawyer.
The Most Important
The Retained Foreign Object (undocumented/forgotten gauze sewn into wound) is something you need to contact https://www.jointcommission.org/ about. It's what's known as a sentinel event, and you need to make sure it was reported.
You can probably go ahead and contact them before you find a lawyer, because it's a regulatory body (more or less) and they have to do an investigation. That doesn't mean talk with the care provider without a lawyer or try to initiate any sort of damages claim before you have representation.
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I don't really know what you mean by wrong suture, suture spitting and discomfort is a thing that happens and not necessarily because something was done incorrectly. If you know the material of the suture vs the material it should have been for the procedure, that would be helpful. The stuff about poor care and further pain and distress because of bad nursing would be something that would be complicated and involve you dealing with the company/hospital/clinic where you received the care and your lawyer.
I mean, in the end... healthcare is complicated and part of it being complicated is because bad outcomes happen sometimes. Separating the bad outcome from negligence and working through all that stuff is exactly why it's important to have a lawyer who knows what they're doing. I can't see why you'd have trouble finding a lawyer willing to take up the case about the gauze.
Just some scattered ideas, I'm not a lawyer or doctor but have been in the orbit of some lawsuits during my time working in surgery.
I was curious about this bit too, depending on the state that isn't okay. Would definitely need a lawyer to determine whether a secretly recorded visit was worth bringing to court even if it wasn't illegal.
Edit: I know we have some doctors and lawyers on this forum. You may want to wait a day or two until some of them weigh in before you make any firm decisions.
Edit2: Some reading about retained foreign objects, has links to other resources embedded in document:
https://www.jointcommission.org/assets/1/6/SEA_51_URFOs_10_17_13_FINAL.pdf
Have you had any support from or contact with the Georgia Advocacy Office (http://thegao.org/)? They wouldn't sue anyone for you, but they may be able to refer you to someone who is willing. People have talked about contingency and retainer fee models for lawyers, and I don't know what the Georgia Bar is like, but some lawyers also do public interest work, and your situation might be in their wheelhouse.
civil law is like any other service. you don't have a right to it, you have to have either a strong case or money.
i'm guessing you don't have money, so you need an appealing case, and it doesn't sound like you're capable of sorting this all out for a lawyer by yourself
failing that, your only good course of action is to consult consumer advocacy and charitable law organization
(1) statute of limitations;
(2) the limits on malpractice actions in red states are severe and make it difficult to hold doctors accountable for malpractice;
(3) these kind of long-winded posts or narrative make you look like a kook to any potential lawyer. If you talk in the same way you write here, lawyers will conclude you're not worth the trouble, especially given items #1 and #2 above.
So my suggestion is you draft a single-paragraph recital of the key facts and issues you want to sue one doctor on, like what "Yes, and . . ." wrote. You
Totally fair reminder, but also a good reason to get a trusted friend or family member help you sort and itemize things and bounce summary drafts off of.
Some of the most interesting and fascinating stories of wrongdoings, both criminal and civil, are winding and twisting tales with many characters and many "and THEN this happened" moments. These are cases that movies are made of.
Real-life lawyers do not want those cases. They want a tidy, summarized outline:
- Who's the bad guy
- What did they do
- How can you prove it
I think your best bet is to specifically pick the most egregious offender in your case, document the most obviously terrible thing they did, and talk to a lawyer about just that. If you can get someone to take your case on that basis, then as you continue to communicate with them they may begin to gradually assimilate other aspects of what has happened to you into the case.I am not your lawyer and this information does not apply to Georgia.
In a state outside of Georgia that's roughly in the South, you would have the following issues:
Two years after discovery of the injury/incident is the limitations bar. You can't sue anyone now since you knew about the injury in 2011 and it appears to be the underlying cause of your issues.
Then you have insurance issues. Often doctors will have right of refusal insurance which means that they can decide not to negotiate your claim pre-suit, so you then HAVE to file suit.
Then you have an issue with getting an expert to write a report showing breach of the standard of care. This can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Then you have massive pre-existing conditions that greatly complicate your case.
Then, taking into account difficulties with editing your statement, sentences like "sent me off to a different hospital to die" are a massive red flag to attorneys.
You're better off looking for injuries as a result of nursing errors. Then you can sue the hospital they work for. Doctors typically don't work for hospitals, they're independent contractors.
You'll still run into the not having a lawyer issues of finding an expert, getting a report that satisfies statutory requirements, presenting that expert for deposition, representing yourself at your own deposition, and taking it to trial.
You need to pair down your story immensely. Don't launch into the catheter stories because that's not relevant. That will add to pain and suffering in time, but if you start talking about all that I'm tuning you out.
Find out what your bills are for the hospital stays and surgeries after the screw up AND ARE RELATED TO THE SCREW UP, what your out of pocket expenses are, massively reduce the length of your story, and then tell that to the lawyer.
Right now, and I mean NO offense by this because I somewhat understand your typing/editing issue, you sound like nothing but a headache to an attorney. Staff at my office hear two or three rambling stories every day for medical malpractice and it's an immediate red flag.
Keep it short and concise, know or have a rough idea of your bills/expenses, relevant dates of injury, and then call a lawyer.