Sue for malpractice, wrongful death or criminal

I live in NC. I have wrestled with these thoughts for 6 years.
In 1997, my mother was visiting from out of state .
She had chest pains so we took her to my local hospital.
The hospital took 1.5 days to get heart doctors to look at my mother. Hospital did treat her for pain and knew she was/did have heart a condition. I recently learned that my mother's physician never replied back with her medical records to the hospital. My mother was in the hospital's care for 4-5 days before she passed away. I would very much like to have closure on this and some assurance this may not happen again to someone else.
Please advise.

[enjay]

Let it go...your mother has been gone for 6 years and had a heart condition. I'm sorry that you are still struggling with this, but you need to move on with your life.

[ellencee]

apples
With so little information available to review it is impossible to tell if your mother received substandard, standard, or above-standard care. A cardiologist is not necessary for treatment of an acute cardiac condition and 36 hours is certainly not an unreasonable length of time for a cardiologist to become involved; certainly for my area of NC where there are no cardiologist and the community is dependent on a cardiology practice from Charlotte.

Your mother's medical records from her primary physician would be of little benefit in an acute cardiac event.

Certainly you need to obtain acceptance of your mother's death and move past the stage of grief where you wish to assign blame to someone for her death; six years is too long to remain in the initial stages of the grief process. Grief counseling may be helpful.

No one will be able to prevent persons of all ages from dying of cardiac disease or death from cardiac failure inspite of the best of medical care and, or with or without a cardiologist or the medical records from the primary physician.

Best wishes,
EC

Are you saying, if I go to the hospital having a heart attack, that it might be a foot doctor that attends to me? Where is the rationale to get to the hospital as soon as possible if it takes 2 days for the appropriate doctors to get there? My mother could have easily have gone to Charlotte instead of Gastonia. It seems to me that the hospital kept her alive for x number of days that medicare allowed and then walked away. It's not the money I want, it is the knowledge that competent doctors are seeing to our care. Thanks for your thoughts.

[enjay]

People die. It's sad, but it's what happens. You are still trying to place blame when you should be trying to gain acceptance of the situation.

[ellencee]

.

Are you saying, if I go to the hospital having a heart attack, that it might be a foot doctor that attends to me? Where is the rationale to get to the hospital as soon as possible if it takes 2 days for the appropriate doctors to get there? My mother could have easily have gone to Charlotte instead of Gastonia. It seems to me that the hospital kept her alive for x number of days that medicare allowed and then walked away. It's not the money I want, it is the knowledge that competent doctors are seeing to our care. Thanks for your thoughts.

apples

You know, it just doesn't matter if it's a foot doctor or an eye doctor or 'female' doctor or some other form of 'doctor'; in an emergency, it's the 'doctor' part that counts.

You say the hospital kept her alive for x number of days (4-5) days after admission and the doctors simply walked away (taking all the nurses and others) leaving your mother to die because Medicare's approved hospital stay expired? That's a 'how dare you' statement. How dare you accuse the hospital and its staff of doing such! How dare you fail to accept that if your mother could not survive without continuous medical care, she wasn't going to survive with or without hospitalization!

Your mother's medical records would have had little if any impact on the care she received or required. The cardioloist was fully capable of recognizing pre-existing heart conditions and the correlation to the current physical status. The cardiologist did not rush your mother to Charlotte for any advanced heart procedures. Apparently, there was no indication that Charlotte had more to offer.

I suspect that you feel some degree of guilt over your mother's death as she had come to visit you, perhaps even at your invitation and assistance. It's not competent doctors that you want. You want someone to blame for your mother's dying when she was supposed to only come for a visit; not, come over and die.

If you meant what you said about not wanting this to happen to anyone else--then spread the word about the importance of having a copy of your most recent physical exam results on your person when you travel (or have it easily accessible by a family member) and to wear the appropriate medical alert bracelet or necklace if you have any medical condition that requires specialized care.

EC

this is something i've never heard off. "you don't need a cardioligost to treat an acute cardiac condition"- unbelieable!

even if the hospital is not equipped with proper doctors when you check into the hospital they have to tell you they do not have the proper doctor for your care and give you opertunity to go to a better hospital. this excuse of "we don't have the proper doctors to attend your illness" is not a defence to malpractice. I am not surprised that several of the medical personal on this board try and steer away the folks that may have a claim of malpractice. its called code of siliance, since they stand to make nothing from their advice why should they tell you to sue a colleage? remember, the more med-mal suits that are filed causes all medical personal insurance to go up each year, to urge someone to sue would be against their own welfare. a lot of the people that come to this board don't have a case, but some do and those that do are often told they don't have a claim. all med-mal suits are difficult to win even the slam dunks. they are hard to win because of the many different standards of care that can be used across the nation. doctors will lie for other doctors in order to hold down the malpractice insurance rates, carring not that they are protecting a bad doctor. go and see a lawyer and see what he says, he's the one that will be handling your case.

DvG

[ellencee]

David vs Goliath

You are not thinking--nurses, EMTs, residents, interns, externs, medics, etc. all 'run codes'; all treat cardiac emergencies. A cardiologist is certainly a specialist in the field of cardiology, but a reasonable person can not expect a cardiologist to be present in the ER at all times or readily available at all times. ERs have general practioners on duty 24/7 and that is sufficient.

The hospital to which this woman's mother was taken is a good hospital and is within 20 minutes of Charlotte. Had the woman's mother needed to be transferred to Charlotte it was a simple matter of transferring by ambulance; Life Flight is not even indicated due to the close proximity.

Gastonia, like the area in which I live, is dependent on one set of cardiologists whose practice is centrally located in Charlotte. Every hospital in approximately a 100 mile radius of Charlotte is capable of handling cardiac emergencies and cardiac care of considerable complexity without having a board certified cardiologist present. When appropriate, a cardiologist is consulted and always provided within a reasonable length of time.

Gastonia, like our area, may be small and somewhere in the land that time forgot, but the general practioners do some great work. To suggest that only a cardiologist can treat an acute cardiac condition is to ignore the abilities of the remainder of the medical community.

Now, if you want to talk cardiac catherterization, then by all means a cardiologist is needed; but, that's not what we are discussing.

If the original poster remains concerned about the availability of medical records, then she should heed my advice about keeping current, necessary medical information readily available.

Each of us has a responsibility to understand that a general practitioner can effectively and appropriately manage cardiac conditions and a variety of medical personnel can effectively and appropriately manage an acute cardiac condition.

EC