Further Malpractice?

What is the name of your state? Texas

Dec 3, 2003 I went to Dairy Queen for lunch. I ordered the 6 pc catfish basket. After eating the toast and fries I ate 3 pieces of catfish. When i swollowed the last bite of the 3rd piece I noticed the fish had an odd texture and my throat was somewhat sore. Upon further examination of the other 3 pieces I noticed they were almost completely raw. I informed the manager on duty, showing her the remaining 3 pieces, and she offered a voucher for a free basket on my next visit. Since I had eaten most of the food I declined the voucher and left the store. After sitting outside in my truck for 10 minutes, I started to feel very queasy and felt as though I would vomit. I went back in to the restroom and did vomit a small portion of food back up, a very small portion. I held down the rest. I went back to the manager and asked her for that voucher and had her write down why she was giving my the voucher. She stated on it that 'the fish was undercooked'. By that evening my throat was so sore I could not swollow anything, not even liquids. I had the basic flu-like symptoms but they were much more severe. I went to the clinic the next day and saw the same doctor that saw me for my knee injury earlie in the year from my previous post. I told her that I thought I had some type of food poisoning but she claimed I wouldnt be showing symptoms so soon. She gave me a shot and prescribed drugs. I came back 7 days later for my follow up and I was worse. I had also developed pneumonia in addition to the other ailments. She did a chest x-ray and took a blood sample. Another week goes by and I see her again, the pneumonia is subsiding but now I have developed sinusitis. Head xray and more blood drawn and I am out of there again for another week. Finally on the 4th week she releases me back to full duty. Now, every time I saw her I insisted that I had some sort of fod poisoning but she didnt believe me. I did some reasearch on the web and most food poisoning cases exhibit flu like symptoms during the onset of the virus. And in most cases if treated as if it is the flu, there will be very little, if any, affect on the patient. That would explain the length of time it took to recover from the virus. In the end, when she released me she admitted to me that 'something got a hold of you that I cant explain...maybe it was food poisoning' I was so mad, especially after the way she treated me with my knee injury. Now, I have found out thru the local papers and a special on TV that she lost her license to practice medicine in another state for prescribing pain medication to herself and over-prescribing drugs to her patients. LOL, I had 4 unfilled prescriptions for Vicatin ES that she gave me when I didnt even need them. With her history for malpractice what should be the next step for me to take? Also, what can I do in regards to obtaining money for med bills and lost wages from Dairy Queen?

You can contact the Texas medical board at [email protected] or go their site on the internet.

Contact a med-mal, personal injury and worker's comp attorney, the is complex and different implications as your employer required you to see a doctor who had a history of license violations. Did you keep the unfilled Rx for evidence? Do you work around any chemicals?

Well...

Med-Mal in my opinion is not the way to go here, much harder to prove and much longer to process. The average med-mal case take 3.09 years in Texas. Ummm.. You have a much stronger case against Dairy queen for possibly negligence. Although proving that may even be hard. You see she wasn't really lying when she said it was too soon. Certain organisms that cause Food poisoning can take hours to develop and some days, usually the symptoms are just as you said flu like. Fish is really not one of those things thats going to immediately make you sick, it take a little while. However, lets say you really did get sick off the fish, The dairy queen lady said the fish was under cooked, do they have sushi bars in Texas? Not that I am saying fish can't make you sick but I am just playing devils advocate here.
Food poisoning is bacterial and I guess I could even see proximate cause of pnuemonia since there is a bacterial pnuemonia, but its a stretch. In as far as getting your medical bills payed by Dairy Queen, I think its going to be really hard and will require a claim of action in court. Most Dairy Queen's in Texas are not corporate, therefore the liability is of the store owner. If I were you I would send a letter to them explaining that you got sick from their food.But since your doctor never diagnosed food poisoning proving medical malpractice would be impossible.
Sorry, I don't think there is a legal case here at all. Maybe actual damages but your SOL on punitive and I doubt a lawyer would be interested in this case since there is no long term damages.

RandallFabiano said:

Med-Mal in my opinion is not the way to go here, much harder to prove and much longer to process. The average med-mal case take 3.09 years in Texas. Ummm.. You have a much stronger case against Dairy queen for possibly negligence. Although proving that may even be hard. You see she wasn't really lying when she said it was too soon. Certain organisms that cause Food poisoning can take hours to develop and some days, usually the symptoms are just as you said flu like. Fish is really not one of those things thats going to immediately make you sick, it take a little while. However, lets say you really did get sick off the fish, The dairy queen lady said the fish was under cooked, do they have sushi bars in Texas? Not that I am saying fish can't make you sick but I am just playing devils advocate here.
Food poisoning is bacterial and I guess I could even see proximate cause of pnuemonia since there is a bacterial pnuemonia, but its a stretch. In as far as getting your medical bills payed by Dairy Queen, I think its going to be really hard and will require a claim of action in court. Most Dairy Queen's in Texas are not corporate, therefore the liability is of the store owner. If I were you I would send a letter to them explaining that you got sick from their food.But since your doctor never diagnosed food poisoning proving medical malpractice would be impossible.
Sorry, I don't think there is a legal case here at all. Maybe actual damages but your SOL on punitive and I doubt a lawyer would be interested in this case since there is no long term damages.

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Randy,
There you go again, jumping to conclusions without reading OP's other post, if you did and understood the implications you would understand why I didn't discuss the merrits of the case, especially the one with Dairy Queen, because they don't really have a case for the very reasons you stated, but, they have a very good case for med-mal. However it is complicated with worker's comp issues. The fact that the doctor has lost her license is a big clue and why I sent them to the medical board, they can do the same on the other state, with that information she can walk into the office of a med-mal or PI attorney and will be greeted with open arms.

YOU missed the BIG obvious clues! Please if you don't know when it is best to just refer them to an attorney and send them in the right direction, just read the posts untill you have a better idea where and when to refer people. Their attorney will discuss the merrits and elements required for each type of case they may have based on what they bring with them.

so the doc lost

her license that doesnt prove this persons case....

RandallFabiano said:

her license that doesnt prove this persons case....

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NO, It is a part of it, a strong part of it and I am not going to go into evaluating or arguing all the implications here. OP needs to see an attorney, they will know what to do with the evidence. Nor is it necessary to start another thread to put up a link to information about med-mal.

I don't know what happened to my post--I answered this post earlier this morning.

I sincerely doubt there is a medmal claim in this scenario. These symptoms do not represent typical food poisoning and the poster states she had a 'virus'. Antibiotics are not used to treat viral infections.

I suspect the original poster was sick before she ate the undercooked food and simply acknowledged her symptoms when she became mentally 'sick' from the thought of eating raw catfish.

I have never heard of treating food poisoning the same as treating the flu unless it is referring to rest, fluid, and OTC pain relievers as needed.

This poster has no diagnostic test result that proves food poisoning.

I believe a medical expert will opine that the poster suffered no damage due to any act of negligence and that no negligence occurred.

I suggest the poster speak with a medmal attorney. A phone call may suffice.

EC