March 19, 2007

I spoke on the phone this evening with Sentree's mom, Stephanie. She confirmed the facts as reported in various website reports of the case.

This is a very tragic case. In July 1991, Sentree was born. She had fluid detected around her heart, and in October of 1992, surgery was performed to remove the fluid. 

Quoting from, http://www.napil.com/PersonalInjuryCaseLawDetail63352/Page1.htm, "During the surgery, Sentree's heart and coronary artery were punctured." Sadly, "The injury was a significant contributing factor in the child's death. "

The doctors involved did not mention this to the parents. The death certificate was written and claimed the death to be natural. Years later, when researching the autopsy for ensuring that the health of another daughter was not at risk, the parents found that the cause of death was the surgery itself.

Too late, says the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, basing their decision on the present version of the law. http://www.suffolk.edu/sjc/archive/opinions/SJC_09539.pdf in SJC-09539.

Is this was the legislature intended when it passed the present version of the statute of repose for medical malpractice?

Is this really a public policy we want to have?

Are our children regarded as "an acceptable level of casualty" for some greater good?

If so, what is that greater good? It isn't the quality of medicine...

What's the lesson to be learned?  That we should be videotaping every surgery, the way the police videotape traffic stops?



May 12, 2007: I found the newspaper article about the Sentree case thanks to concerned people.  I'll post a .jpg or .pdf later, but for now, here is the article transcribed:

The Patriot Ledger

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

 

Time doesn’t heal loss for parents

 

They waited too long to file malpractice suit, top court rules

 

By SUE REINERT

The Patriot Ledger

 

The parents of a baby girl who died 13 years ago after surgeons allegedly botched her surgery at Children’s Hospital in Boston waited to long to sue for malpractice even though they claimed the doctors and the hospital concealed the mistake.

The state Supreme Judicial Court handed down the decision yesterday dismissing the suit, ruling that the seven-year statute of limitations for malpractice is ironclad except when a doctor leaves an object in a patient.

The absolute cutoff, a law approved in 1986 to curb rising malpractice premiums, might hurt people with justified claims that judges cannot make exceptions “based upon such concerns.” The justices said in an unanimous decision.

The decision came before any trial, so none of the allegations were proven or disproven.

A lawyer for the hospital and the doctors yesterday denied that anyone hid anything or made any mistakes in treatment.  A surgeon told the parents what happened on the day the baby died, George Wakeman said.

Charlotte Glinka, the attorney for the parents, said the hospital and the physicians engaged in “active concealment” of the facts.  The decision “will allow doctors to avoid the truth and escape public liability once seven years has gone by,” Glinka said.

Warren and Stephanie Joslyn of Windsor, Maine, filed suit against Children’s and two physicians in 2002, 10 years after their 7-month-old daughter, Sentree, died at the hospital.

They claimed that a doctor then in surgical training, David P. Nelson, accidentally punctured the baby’s heart and coronary artery during surgery to correct a rare metabolic illness.

The supervising surgeon, Dr. Anthony C. Chang, allegedly told the parents that Sentree’s heart was “too weak to withstand the procedure.”  The death certificate, signed by Nelson, listed the infant’s death as “natural”.

Hospital employees allegedly told the parents back then that Children’s Hospital did not send autopsy reports to families because they wouldn’t understand medical terminology, the suit said.

In 2001, the Joslyns obtained the baby’s medical records at the suggestion of a pediatrician treating their older daughter.  The records revealed the mistake, the suit said.

Wakeman said the hospital “hotly contested” hiding anything.  Chang told Stephanie Joslyn about the heart being punctured on the day the baby died, he said.

Wakeman called the episode a “complication” of the surgery, not a mistake.

He also said that the death certificate was correct.  “The primary cause of (the infant’s) death was really her underlying physical conditions, which led to the need for treatment,” he said.

  “The surgery was certainly an ancillary factor but not the primary cause,” he said.

  Stephanie Joslyn said she was “very upset” at yesterday’s decision.  She said a doctor at Children’s acknowledged after she filed the suit that the hospital mishandled the case.

Wakeman said he had no knowledge of any such conversation with the mother.

Chang and Nelson have no record of any discipline by the medical board in Massachusetts.  They did not renew their state licenses and now work elsewhere.