What legal aspects do I need to work on besides retaining an attorney? My sister is the perosnal rep. so she relays the progress to me per the attorney.My point was the pnemonia was probably the culprit of her heart problems. And the doctors should have cleared up that infection before they did anything invasvive. Therefore they were negligent leading back to my original question about the time frame of releasing her medical records. So I can obtain her death certificate. I know the statue of limitations is two-years. First of all I know I have case, their is an attorney involved and I know it is a long process. I just thought maybe someone who has experienced a similar situation could brief me on how this process works.
OK; we're not meeting your needs. Let's see if some clarity can be accomplished.
A medmal claim must meet four elements:
1) the healthcare professional must have a duty to the patient/plaintiff. (Your claim meets this requirement.)
2) the healthcare professional must breach his/her duty to the patient/plaintiff. (Your claim appears to meet this requirement as lacerating the heart once may be a risk, but twice begs the question of risk or negligence. FYI, the risk of death due to a 'normal' heart cath is 1% and if a stent is placed, the risk of death is 5%.)
3) an act of negligence/malpractice must have occurred. (Your claim appears to have this element.)
4) the act of negligence must be the direct cause of significant damages that would not have otherwise occurred. (Your claim may or may not meet this requirement because your mother had chronic health care problems that included respiratory and cardiac problems that may have resulted in her death during this episode of illness and hospitalization.)
Pneumonia does sometimes present with chest pain or pressure-type pains in the chest. Pneumonia alone does not cause cardiovascular problems that indicate a heart cath. Findings that indicate a heart cath are EKG changes, with or without elevation of cardiac enzymes. The medical records will show the clinical findings that supported the need for a cardiac cath; you can bet on it.
What you do now is wait and wait some more. Your mother's medical records will be reviewed by more than one healthcare expert; the most important and expensive expert will be a cardiologist of the same level of training and practice as that of the cardiologist who performed the heart cath.
Even if the heart cath is determined to have been performed in a negligent manner, it will still have to proven that your mother would have survived if the heart cath had been done without any act of negligence. I hope you are understanding that even if one or more acts of negligence are proven, it is still possible for there to be no viable claim of medmal if it is proven that your mother was not going to survive, or was not likely to survive, anyway.
Make sure your attorney is pursuing under wrongful death and not solely medical malpractice as the statute of limitations is usually one year in wrongful death claims.
My best advice for you is to find something else to occupy your mind other than trying to try this case over and over in your mind. A realistic expectation of resolution to your claim is five years. Five years is a long time to have your imagination running wild, keeping your emotions from progressing and healing through the grief process.
Best wishes,
EC
