A 47-year-old husband and father of five minor children underwent heart bypass surgery. Afterward, one of the bypass grafts leaked and caused a pool of blood to form in the man’s chest. This caused decreased blood pressure and labored breathing. None of the medical professionals taking care of him recognized the problem. Eventually, the pool of blood became so large that it caused enough pressure on his heart to prevent it from beating. The man then stopped breathing and went without oxygen for several minutes, causing irreversible brain damage. He now lives in a persistent vegetative state.

The doctor in this case was warned by the pathologist that a biopsy of the patient’s uterus had abnormal tissue called atypia.

The biopsy had been performed due to vaginal bleeding, but the doctor told the patient her results were normal and that she had nothing to worry about.

The patient experienced intermittent bleeding for two to three years after the biopsy, but the doctor continued to assure her she had nothing to worry about. Eventually, because the doctor was out of town, our client was seen by the doctor’s partner. He immediately performed another biopsy, which showed uterine cancer. Our client underwent surgery, but the cancer had already spread and her prognosis was poor due to the three-year delay.

Our client’s father was having surgery to remove his prostate gland because he had been diagnosed with early prostate cancer. Because he had risk factors for heart disease, he needed to have his heart checked to see if it was up for the surgery. Despite the surgeon and internist agreeing that the patient needed cardiac clearance for surgery, neither actually conducted the necessary tests. Each thought the other one had done them. Obviously, they failed to communicate with each other. During the surgery, the patient suffered a heart attack and died on the table.

Our client went into the hospital for a bone marrow biopsy. During this procedure, the hematologist cut into an artery in the patient’s hip. The artery continued to bleed over the next five days, and the patient lost one-half of the entire blood volume in his body.

The orthopaedic surgeon was called during this time, but he chose not to investigate the problem.

All of the bleeding caused permanent injury to our client’s sciatic nerve, which caused a foot drop, leaving him in extreme pain, on morphine, with a paralyzed leg from the knee down.

Parents took their nine-year-old son to the Cleveland Clinic on multiple occasions for a condition that began as a limp but progressed to the boy needing crutches, and then a wheelchair. Doctors mistakenly diagnosed the child with a psychiatric problem called conversion disorder and admitted him to its Day Hospital program. There, they took away his crutches and made him do sit-ups and push-ups for falling, losing his balance, or walking too slowly.

The Clinic also informed the child’s school that he had a psychiatric condition and should be treated as a normal child. A year after the initial visit to Cleveland Clinic for a limp, the boy was given a simple blood test that showed a genetic neuralgic condition known as dystonia.

A 38-year-old woman’s insurance company referred her to a doctor for varicose vein treatment. This treatment caused chemical burning and scarring to our client’s legs. During the case, we learned that the doctor had been sued for malpractice more than 10 times. In fact, the doctor had trained as a heart surgeon but was unsuccessful in that field, so he moved on to general surgery practice.