Here’s another case for the practically unbelievable files. A young Arizona man is suing University Physicians Healthcare because he claims his right testicle was unnecessarily removed. The story is Kenneth Irby went in for what he believed was going to be a routine biopsy on his right testicle. He asserts that the agreement with his doctor was that his right testicle would only be removed IF cancer were positively discovered. Because his testicle was indeed removed, Irby believed it had been cancerous. At a follow-up appointment, however, he learned that the biopsy was negative and that he did not have cancer.

We often see reports of poor conditions in nursing homes, where patients are mistreated in a number of ways. Well, here’s a switch, as there was just an article in the Oregonian about a Canby nursing home that was found not liable in a wrongful death suit. The nursing home, Marquis Care at Hope Village, was accused of being responsible for the death of a wheelchair-bound patient, who fell out of his wheelchair in the nursing home and died four days later at a hospital.

You may recall John Coletti’s victory for clients Matt & Krista Beale against I-Flow Corporation, producers of pain pumps that can cause permanent damage to joint cartilage. We blogged that attorneys representing I-Flow filed a motion for a new trial with Multnomah County. On April 1 Judge Youlee You denied the motion for a new trial, thus upholding the original jury verdict.

I-Flow is expected to appeal the case, which resulted in a $5.475 million award for the Beales. Coletti is confident the Oregon Appeals Court will uphold the original verdict.

Punitive damages are rare in nursing home cases in Pennsylvania, but last week a jury awarded punitive damages of $5 million against two nursing homes–Jeanes Hospital and Hillcrest Convalescent Home. The two facilities were accused of providing poor care to Joe N. Blango that caused bedsores that ultimately led to his death two years later. Blango’s widow had already been awarded $1 million in compensatory damages two weeks prior to winning the punitive damages.

An investigation is underway to determine whether or not MicroMedCardiovascular, maker of pediatric heart pumps, should have reported the death of a recipient of the pump. The FDA-approved pump, called DeBakey VAD Child Device was designed by Michael DeBakey, a well-known surgeon, and is the only pump of its kind. The manufacturer is required to report any deaths related to and/or caused by the device within 30 days.

The I-Flow Corporation, manufacturers of the pain pumps that have come under legal scrutiny, filed a motion for a new trial with Multnomah County on February 19, 2010. This comes on the heels of the January 22, 2010, verdict against the I-Flow Corporation. In that trial, lead attorney John Coletti won a $5.4 million verdict for his clients, Matt & Krista Beale.

In the late 1990s it became popular among surgeons to insert the pain pumps directly into the joints following shoulder surgery. Unfortunately, many patients developed chondrolysis, a debilitating and irreversible degeneration of the joint cartilage. Hundreds of lawsuits against the pain pump manufacturers, including I-Flow Corporation and McKinley Medical, are underway, and in November 2009 the FDA issued a warning to the medical community to stop using pain pumps in joints.

You know that Hasbro board game Operation? It always sort of gave me the creeps. There just seemed to be something so wrong about fishing out little objects left in the “patient.” But, it’s a game. Unfortunately, there have been many real-life cases of foreign objects being left in patients during surgery, enough that a company has designed and manufactured a device to locate such foreign remnants.

Nurse Anne Mitchell thought she was doing the right thing when she contacted the Texas state medical board to report what she believed to be medical malpractice on the part of Dr. Rolando G. Arafiles, Jr. Mitchell was not only fired by Winkler County Memorial Hospital, where she had worked for 25 years, but she was also slapped with a third-degree felony charge for “misuse of official information.”

The number of people affected by chondrolysis (degeneration of the joint cartilage) because of pain pumps is notable and has led to hundreds of lawsuits, including the one successfully led by John Coletti. The recent New York Times’ article chronicling the saga notes the controversy surrounding the pain pumps and whether or not pain pumps are indeed directly responsible for chondrolysis.

I was searching around for interesting articles to blog about when I came across an article by Joanne Doroshow on the Huffington Post blog called “This Week in Horrific Medical Negligence News.” She highlights a number of news stories and lawsuits across the country that display, well, horrific medical negligence. She puts it much better than I ever could. To read the article, click here.