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Tag: Orthopedic Surgeon Malpractice

Biojoint Litigation 1

Posted on by Burton Bentley II, M.D FAAEM

Two patients at the Mizzou Biojoint Center in Columbia, MO, have filed lawsuits alleging medical negligence following knee surgery. The 13th Judicial Circuit of Missouri lawsuit charges James Stannard, MD, medical director for the Mizzou Biojoint Center, and James Cook, DVM, PHD, OTSC, director of operations and scientific director of the center, with not disclosing that the surgeries were experimental.  Plaintiffs Amanda Reinsch and Daniel Draper were also not advised that Cook is not a medical doctor, nor was he a licensed physician at the time. The Mizzou Biojoint Center website states:

Mizzou BioJoint® solutions may be right for you if:

You are 55 or younger

You are nicotine-free

Your height to weight ratio falls within a BMI of 35 or less

Plaintiffs Reinsch and Draper allege that Stannard failed to tell them they were not proper candidates for the surgery. Their body mass indexes were both above 35 and Reinsch was not nicotine free.

Columbia Ortho Group describes the biojoint procedure:

Are biojoints really a transplant procedure?

Yes, the biojoint procedure is a transplant procedure. When an organ donor passes away, his/her organs, including their joints, are harvested. The joints are evaluated for diseases and treated for preservation by companies which specialize in preparing these parts for transplantation. The recipient patient with the arthritic joint is kept on a waiting list. When the appropriately sized bone and cartilage are available, the patient is called and arrangements are made to transplant the bone and cartilage promptly. Once the harvested bone and cartilage are available, it is common that there may only be forty-five to sixty days during which the transplant can be performed.

Draper was an active duty member of the U.S. Army. He underwent a second Mizzou Biojoint surgery when the first was unsuccessful. Draper eventually underwent a total knee replacement following the two unsuccessful biojoint surgeries. Draper states that he lost the ability to continue his career in the military and can no longer live independently.

Stannard recommended the Mizzou Biojoint surgery to Reinsch in 2016. She had pain following the procedure and had two additional follow up surgeries. A second opinion led to a total knee replacement by a different surgeon who found that Reinsch’s knee was infected with staph bacteria. She reports irreversible and permanent damage to her knee.

Orthopedic surgeons diagnose and treat diseases and injuries of bones, joints, ligaments, tendons, muscles, and nerves. Allegations of medical negligence usually stem from medical complications and/or poor surgical outcomes and a possible loss of function. Orthopedic surgery expert witnesses provide an unbiased opinion regarding the medical standard of care in these lawsuits. Contact ELITE Medical Experts to secure a leading orthopedic surgery expert from a major US academic medical center.

Concurrent Surgeries & The Orthopedic Surgery Expert Witness

Posted on by Burton Bentley II, M.D FAAEM

A Boston jury has determined that a spine surgeon, did not cause his patient’s quadriplegia following surgery in 2012. The surgeon, Chief of orthopedic spine service, performed two complicated surgeries during the same time frame. The patient sued the surgeon for malpractice following an eleven hour surgery that left him paralyzed. The jury concluded that the doctor’s divided attention did not cause the patient’s quadriplegia.

Concerns over concurrent and overlapping surgeries have come to the attention of hospitals and the public. The Senate Finance Committee released a report in December 2016 that calls for a ban on concurrent surgeries and more regulations on overlapping surgeries. The Senate Finance Committee has jurisdiction over the Medicare and Medicaid programs and part of its oversight responsibility is to improve patient safety and transparency. In December 2015, Committee staff became aware of overlapping, concurrent, and simultaneous surgeries reported in a Boston Globe article. The American College of Surgeons Statements on Principles, revised April 12, 2016, found that “A primary attending surgeon’s involvement in concurrent or simultaneous surgeries on two different patients in two different rooms is not appropriate.”

In the case Boston case, the jury found that while the spine surgeon failed to inform the patient that he planned to operate on two patients at once, the jury decided that the doctor’s divided attention did not cause his quadriplegia. Judge Edward Leibensperger instructed jurors that they could only consider whether the medical treatment the patient received “deviated from established standards of care and caused his injury” (Boston Globe, 1/30/2017). Judge Leibensperger is a member of the Business Litigation Session of the Superior Court of Massachusetts.

When the attending surgeon is managing more than one case at the same time, he or she may be away from one of those patients for an extended period of time.  If complications arise, the patient may question whether “double-booking” was an appropriate medical procedure and bring allegations of medical negligence.

A 2019 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed nearly 12 percent of the 66,000 operations studied had some overlap with another case. For the majority of overlapping surgeries, we found no increase in deaths or overall complications compared to surgeries that did not overlap.  A subset of complications — major complications such as stroke and heart attack — were slightly higher.

The study found small increases in deaths and complications for overlapping surgeries involving coronary artery bypass grafting and high-risk patients. In both of these groups, small errors in surgical care could have harmful effects.