AboutGlenn A. Dorfman Expertise Twenty-four years experience in personal injury, medical malpractice and medical product liability law. Practice currently concentrated on the diet drug (fen-phen) litigation. Qualified to answer all questions regarding injuries and the law, except for worker`s compensation.
Question I was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy and treated with methotrexate. The doctor monitored the bloods regularly and the numbers were going down suggesting the drug was working. However, on atleast 3 occasions I reported having abdominal & back pain and was told to take a motrin and if it resolves itself I was fine. I was not sent for any follow up sonograms and maintained the mentality that if it resolves its ok. However, on the last occassion the pain came again and was very intense. I called my mother, a nurse, who advised me to go to the emergency room. There they found I was bleeding internally and the tube had ruptured. They removed a large amount of blood and the entire tube. Is this negligence because my symptoms were ignored and potentially the tube could've been saved? and potentially following her advice could've died?
Answer This is another story that I find somewhat strange. Firstly, what was the methotrexate supposed to do? It is primarily a cancer drug, sometimes used for rheumatoid arthritis. To my knowledge (but I am not a doctor), there is no drug treatment for an ectopic pregnancy. The only treatment is surgery. So I find it strange that once the diagnosis was made they didn't operate right away. Even if the doctors negligently failed to operate when they should have, and one could even call it malpractice, you don't have a viable case in my opinion. The reason is that even if done early, the surgery would involve serious damage to the tube and it is highly unlikely it would even function again. Furthermore, you still have one other tube so it would be hard to seek big damages for infertility. Other than that you suffered no serious long term injury and unless a case is worth well into the 6 figures, it's just not worth pursuing. Also, yes, you could have died. But "what could have happened but didn't" legally cannot be part of a malpractice case. Only "what did" happen counts.
