Medical Malpractice Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Medical Malpractice - Case Study Example The decision of the trial court was raised on appeal to the COURT OF APPEAL OF LOUISIANA, FOURTH CIRCUIT. The plaintiff, Sheila Webb, instituted the action in connection with the death of her son, Rodney Comeaux, the alleged victim of the medical malpractice. The main ground of the suit she filed was the negligence of the attending medical doctors and of the hospital appurtenant to the duty of the latter to closely monitor the said patient through its nursing staff. Rodney Comeaux died at the hospital on July 21, 1988. The defendants, on the other hand, were (a) the Tulane Medical Center Hospital where Rodney Comeaux was entered for confinement and diagnosis, and (b) a certain Dr. Abe Andes, a doctor of medicine supposedly specializing in hematology, who attended to the patient, decedent Rodney Comeaux. The civil complaint was filed with the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans which had original jurisdiction over the matter pursuant to the Rules for Louisiana District Courts. (TITLE II RULES FOR CIVIL PROCEEDINGS IN DISTRICT COURTS (EXCEPT FOR FAMILY AND DOMESTIC RELATIONS AND JUVENILE PROCEEDINGS. RULES FOR LOUISIANA DISTRICT COURTS. [internet]). After the decision was handed down by the trial court, the matters at issue were raised on appeal to the COURT OF APPEAL OF LOUISIANA, FOURTH CIRCUIT, which had appellate jurisdiction over the suit in accordance with the applicable procedures.(Rule 1-2. Title and Scope of Rules. UNIFORM RULES LOUISIANA COURTS OF APPEALS. THE STATE OF LOUISIANA COURT OF APPEAL FOURTH CIRCUIT. [internet]) The facts of the case Rodney Comeaux was full of complicated health problems since when he was young. Diagnosed with Sickle Cell Anemia at an early age of six months, Rodney was never in perfect health. Sickle Cell Anemia (or SCA for short) is a genetic abnormality in blood which is incurable. He had continuously suffered from pneumonia bouts and the anemia predicaments. During the month of June in 1988, Rodney, aged twenty three by then, complained of chest pains and stomach discomforts. He was brought to defendant Tulane Medical Center for admission. Dr. Abe Andes, the medical director of the hospital, attended to him. Released from the medical confinement on July 6, 1988, Rodney was prescribed an oral antibiotic called Keflex. He was advised to come back for an appointment with Dr. Andes on July 12 of that same year, specifically at two thirty in the afternoon of that date. Dr. Andes wrote down his findings as pulmonary infarction versus pneumonia. Before Dr. Andes, Rodney Comeaux was being treated at the SCA clinic by a certain Dr. Frempong, the the director of the said clinic. It was only in 1986 that Dr. Andes took over from Dr. Frempong. Hours before the designated visit on July 12, 1988, Rodney showed up at the SCA clinic where he complained of chest pain and request to meet Dr. Andes. The latter was then preoccupied attending to other patients who had prior