The Doctor's Fault: Three Cases

MANY people joke about surgeons leaving assorted instruments in their patients. Not John Everard, 33, a worker in an airplane factory in Glendale, Calif. Shortly after Everard had undergone a gallbladder operation, he began to feel pains in his lower right abdomen. His physician assured him that his discomfort was normal and would soon disappear. It persisted; more than two years later, an X ray revealed why: Everard's surgeon had failed to remove a hemostat, or surgical clamp, which had lodged in his patient's abdominal cavity. The facts speak for themselves, argued Everard's attorney. They did indeed. Holding that such a condition could only result from negligence, a court duly awarded the man $12,500.

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The issues were less clear-cut in the case of Mrs. Santa Teriaca, 51, a Cleveland housewife. Bothered by the worsening of a chronic limp, she had an operation for the removal of a small tumor on her spinal cord, and ended up paralyzed from the chest down. Her doctors claimed that the result was unfortunate but unavoidable. Mrs. Teriaca replied that she had been unaware of the risks. "The doctors," she told the court, "only told me that it would be as simple an operation as a tonsillectomy." The defendants apparently agreed that they should have told her more about the risks involved in the operation. The case was settled out of court for $40,000.

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Far more frightening is the case of Louisa Alvaro, 26. A healthy mother of two, she began to hemorrhage during delivery of normal twins at a New York City hospital. Fifteen hours later she was dead. Doctors and hospital officials contended that her death was the result of a pre-existing liver condition and that everything had been done to save her. Her husband's attorney proved otherwise. Relying on expert testimony that tests were needed to determine the compatibility of Mrs. Alvaro's blood with blood administered during a transfusion, he was able to show that no tests were performed and that Mrs. Alvaro was virtually ignored by hospital personnel until it was too late to do anything for her. Accepting the lawyer's contention that Mrs. Alvaro died because "nobody cared," a jury found the hospital and attending physicians negligent. The final award: $60,000 to the woman's family.

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