rhode asked:
My son was born with a rare genetic disease, which caused his facial structures are under developed . During the pregnancy, my wife followed the entire necessary test.
Now we went back to the medical records and found out that the ultrasonic pictures clearly showed his deformed facial structures. However no any medical doctors told us about this, every time we were told everything is fine? Could we sue the medical doctor for her medical malpractice? Thanks
NO! They probably just couldn’t detect it! It’s not their fault. Not every birth defect can be detected before birth.
Yes, you probably could. With my experience in pregnancy, OB doctors see 50 pregnant women a day. They allot about 5 minutes per patient and they probably just glance at ultrasound pics.
Hire a lawyer and see if she/he thinks you have a chance at a case.
Good luck.
Im not sure where you would stand but its worth a go i had the same problem my girl was born with a heart defect and NO one picked up until after birth which could of been to late if she haddent of failed her aspgar test
I personally didint go through with it i had to much to handel
but i wish you the best of luck
you probably could but you’ll have to contact a lawyer and tell them your situation to see if they think it will work. and it will probably cost you a lot of money.
you could try but good luck with it. My youngest son has cerebral palsy resulting from a stroke during my pregnancy or labor with him, i did not receive the best care from my doctors at the hospital and me and my husband are in the middle of a lawsuit, but i can see this either going no where or taking years to get settled. Now that we are in the process of it we will see it through to the end but if i were to do it all over again i wouldn’t even bother its just way to many headaches
Sure, you can sue anyone that you want. Will you win this one? Probably not.
By them telling you.. would it have made a difference in whether or not his face became deformed? While she was pregnant, could they have done anything to prevent it once they discovered the deformity’s on the u/s? If so, then you can sue.. Not telling was wrong.. but if that’s all they did wrong.. then you have no case…
I’m glad to hear he’s ok other than that! Don’t listen to these ignorant people on here who are leaving rude answers! People are people no matter what! A beating heart and a brain makes us all one! Merry X-mas!!! Or Happy Holiday!!
I don’t know if this would qualify as malpractice, and you would spend a lot of time and money and probably have a lot of heartache over the case.
My question to you is: how would knowing about this condition have changed anything? Could you have done anything to treat the condition before your baby was born (I’m guessing not)? It’s likely that the only thing you could’ve done was to get an abortion, but killing a baby just because he’s not perfect is no answer at all. I’m DEFINITELY not implying that you would’ve had an abortion, I’m just trying to think like a judge would, and I can’t think of any other reason your knowledge of this condition would’ve mattered, and if your prior knowledge doesn’t matter, then I don’t think you have a case. If I were you, I would just love my baby and try not to dwell on his problems (I know that’s difficult–as a parent, you always expect your baby to come out perfect and healthy).
So what is the malpractice here?
Not telling you (assuming they knew) has posed no risk to your child unlike if it were a heart condition or suchlike, and what could they have done?
Judging by the quality of ultrasound pictures I very much doubt that the deformed facial features were obvious, I can only just make out the vague shape of the baby.
Even if they had known and told you what would you have done, had an abortion? not very good being seen to not want a child because his face is slightly deformed!
I think you are just angry and want to take it out on someone, go ahead if you like but the whole case would rest on being able to determine the deformity from the ultrasound and even if you could I doubt you’d win.
Sorry but there probably isn’t much you can do.
you cant prove something like that on U/S and they are doctors NOT U/S technicians. teh doctors did not CAUSE the problem so there was no malpractice- jsut like you can not sue a doctor for saying teh wrong sex on U/S
There’s really no such thing as clearly in an ultrasound, but to make your case you would have to show:
*That you had the ultrasound with the purpose of screening for ALL defects
*That the ultrasound showed the defect before the legal limit for abortion
*That you would in fact have aborted the fetus.
Chances are the ultrasound couldn’t actually diagnose the problem and a rare enough genetic test wouldn’t have shown in additional screening (not that many genetic defects have screening test). So if you had been told there may be something potentially wrong with the baby which may be caused by any of 10/20/30 disorders would you have had an abortion.
Really unless the doctor refuses to give you a screening test for a specific disorder, or loses or doesn’t give you the results of of the screening you really don’t have much of a case.
If you really don’t want this defective baby then the remedy for you is adoption.
It’s not your doctor’s fault your son has a rare genetic disease. Why sue? Just because something is horrible and tragic and maddening and upsetting doesn’t mean you ought to sue someone for it.