Pediatric Neurologist Deposition || Wrongful Death Medical Malpractice

This is the deposition of the defendant pediatric neurologist in a medical malpractice case in Montgomery County, Maryland. Miller & Zois, LLC filed this wrongful death and survival action against the pediatric neurologist and several other physicians. Ultimately, the jury found this doctor negligent but found that her negligence did not contribute to the victim's death because they found the child would have died anyway even if she has not breached the standard of care. The victim in this case was a 12-year-old boy with no significant medical history. In particular, he didn't have a history of headaches or migraines. [You can find the opening statement in this malpractice lawsuit here: https://www.millerandzois.com/malprac...] All of sudden, the boy developed a sudden and severe headache with nausea, vomiting 10 times in a day, dizziness, fatigue, and the inability to move his neck. His mother did everything she could from the moment this began. She took him to the pediatrician who immediately sent them to the emergency room to “rule out more serious causes” of the child’s headaches. The emergency room physicians diagnosed the boy with migraines and sent him home with pain medication. No imaging studies were performed. If a simple CAT scan had been done, it would have saved his life. Over the course of the next two days, the mother called the pediatrician’s office two additional times to report that her son was still having headaches and to asked for stronger medication. The pediatricians prescribed stronger medication and recommended the mother take her son back to the emergency room if his headaches failed to improve. The mother did just that. On Easter Sunday, she took her son back to the ER. Again, the ER physicians diagnosed the boy with “unspecified headaches” and sent him home. Again, no imaging studies were performed. The next day the boy and his mother went back to the pediatrician complaining of the same symptoms in addition to a new symptom: pain preventing sleep. The pediatrician gave the boy and his mother refer to a see a pediatric neurologist. The boy and his mother saw the pediatric neurologist two days later. Even though the mom reported he was having trouble moving his neck, the pediatric neurologist never examined the boy’s neck (there are no notes in the medical chart that she examined his neck). Moreover, as you can imagine, a patient's history of headaches is important in determining if this is a new headache and worrisome headache. The pediatric neurologist in this case failed to elicit any information from the patient or his mother regarding his headache history. Had she done so, she would have quickly realized that these were new headaches, unlike any others he ever had. Perhaps most concerning, the pediatric neurologist stated in her deposition that she was concerned the boy might be suffering from a serious condition such as a brain tumor (see video deposition at approximately 2:02:19 and 2:22:00). As a result, she ordered a head CT scan, but told the mother to wait in getting it. At her deposition, the pediatric neurologist said she didn’t tell the mother the reasons she ordered the head CT because she didn’t want the mother to “run out and get the CT scan that day.” Unfortunately, that is not the way it works in medicine. Physicians have a legal obligation to obtain their patient’s “informed consent.” This includes telling the patient the nature of the ailment and the alternatives to the proposed treatment plan. In this case, the pediatric neurologist failed to disclose that she considered more serious causes of the boy’s headaches, such as brain tumor. She also failed to tell the parent the reason why she ordered a CT scan. Why might a physician do such a thing? The answer is simple. Because they want to control the patient’s decision-making. Unfortunately, that is not the physician’s call. Ultimately, in this case the child had a brain aneurysm that was causing his headaches. Approximately two days after seeing the pediatric neurologist, the aneurysm ruptured causing the boy’s death. This case was tried in front a jury in Montgomery County. After hearing all the evidence, the jury found this pediatric neurologist: 1) breached the standard of care in failing to order an emergency CT scan; and 2) breached the informed consent requirement. Unfortunately, the jury also found that even if a CT scan was performed it would been difficult to save the child’s life given the size and location of the aneurysm. Therefore, the Plaintiff was unable to prove the causation necessary to receive an award of damages. Our firm poured our hearts, efforts, and money in this case. We lost. If you are plaintiffs' lawyer handling malpractice cases who has not lost cases, you are not trying many cases. But we did everything we could possibly do for this wonderful mother who gracious agreed to allow us to put this video online to help others.