Question It has been a year since i had my rotator surgery, it has never gotten better. the surgeon wouldn't check to see if it was torn again so i went to my family doctor' had another mri. she said the test was inconclusive, she couldn't see my rotator cuff due to the metal in my arm. she couldn't explain to me why there is metal in my arm. the surgeon told me before i had the surgery that he only had to stitch the tear with stitches that would dissolve. but now i find out that there is metal in my arm. do i have a lawsuit.
Answer Well, you have a mystery in your shoulder. The surgeon says all he did was to stitch the tear (tendons?). He denies metal work? Your GP says the MRI is inconclusive. My guess that is the reading by the radiologist because a GP would not give you a reading but would defer to the radiologist.
So, what did your surgeon do? Metal in your shoulder does not fit the usual surgery for a rotator cuff injury. The rotator cuff is a bundle of tendons that envelope the shoulder joint, more or less. No need to drive screws into tendons. If you want my guess, and perhaps everyone who reads this will scream and holler but let them, is that this guy sniffed a little too much cocaine that morning and did someone else's surgery on you. How to prove that? Well that job is not too difficult, and I have done things like that in the dim past.
Challenges like this are great fun.
You may need a lawyer these days to get into the hospital bowels and uncover that goof. A sharp lawyer can disclose this bungle if he is good during the deposition of the doctor. He could start by asking the doctor how many surgeries that morning, what were the diagnoses, list these in order by time and give the times? He can also ask the doctor what he took that morning. It is worth a shot because if your lawyer can even suggest something like that happened, that doctor will ask his insurance carrier to pay. At the very least an error in sending or identifying the right patient for the surgery may be uncovered. That will require depositions of every one assigned to surgery including the Director of the Surgical Department. They will squirm, but good questions can open the sluice gate.
One other sign of malpractice may not be in your records. That the surgeon did more than he told you he was going to do and now does not wish to admit it. for some reason. But this is not as likely as the wrong surgery on the wrong patient theory.
So, yes, you should see a malpractice lawyer. Your case is well worth some effort.
