Successful Settlement — Doctors Failed to Diagnose Blood Infection

Keith Gross recently settled a medical malpractice case in which two doctors — one from an urgent care facility and the other the patient’s regular doctor — failed to timely diagnose and properly treat our client's endocarditis, commonly known as an infection of the heart.

"Our client had a congenital heart murmur, which both doctors knew about. The murmur was caused by a ventricular septal defect, a pre-existing hole in the heart wall which separates the two lower chambers, and which put him at increased risk for developing a heart valve infection. Despite weeks of symptoms including an unexplained fever, and the heart murmur, the doctors failed to order tests that would have confirmed the infection (bacteremia) at a time when it could have been successfully treated by intravenous antibiotics." Keith Gross — Medical Malpractice Lawyer, Jacob Fuchsberg Law Firm

The failure to timely diagnose and treat the infection resulted in the bacteria seeding and damaging our client’s aortic heart valve, requiring open-heart surgery to replace the valve and to remove other areas of damage. It was our position that this surgery could and should have been avoided by a timely diagnosis and treatment.