Appendix Rupture and Medical Liability

My question involves medical malpractice in the state of: Texas

My husband went to the doctors office around two in the afternoon. He had pain in lower right stomach, but his white blood count was not too high. Dr. Sent him home and told him to take laxative tea. By six pm we were in the ER and by 8pm they diagnosed appendicitis. But CT scan showed it had not ruptured. So they scheduled surgery for the following morning. I questioned this because I thought it was always preferred to try and prevent rupture? By the time of surgery it had ruptured and there was a great deal of infection. Before discharge they told us there was cancer in the appendix. The rupture basically blew cancer cells all around his lower colon and spleen. We are now beginning cancer treatment and colon surgery. Should I seek a malpractice attorney?it is not the doctors fault he had cancer but by allowing it to rupture his chances of the cancer spreading to lymph nodes has greatly increased.

Your husband is free to take his records to a med-mal attorney for a consultation. There isn't enough information here for us to make a call. We don't know what the doctors at the ER saw as far as evaluating the state of your husbands appendicitis. A single bout of appendicitis, the severity of which we know nothing about, is not necessarily going to necessitate removal. Further, they must triage patients as far as surgery goes. If there were multiple critical patients ahead of your husband, morning may have been the soonest they could get him into an OR.

Kathleen--
I am so sorry this happened to you!!! Your post caught my eye because I had a similar incident almost a year ago and it still upsets me. My 8 year old presented to the ER with pain/vomiting starting 72 hours earlier--CT diagnosed non ruptured appendix and they transported us 45 min to childrens hospital. We arrived at 5:30pm and the surgeon did not want to stay to do surgery-so he was scheduled the next day--it was ruptured when they went into surgery. ONE HOT MAMA!!
I will pray for your husband! Keep him positive!
Where I work, the surgeons take out the appendix immediately! Why the pediatric surgeons wait???--it not right--these babies will have a lifelong battle with adhesions from having to be "cleaned out"---being a medical professional--we are to DO NO HARM and that is not what the Pedi surgeons did for my son.

What kind of "doctor" are we talking about on the initial visit? No sane doctor would prescribe "laxative tea" to someone with intenstinal problems of this sort. This is where a lot of fault lies. Not the ER.

The concept of "blew cancer cells" is not medically grounded and indicates there's something more going on than appendicitis.

You need:

1. A top notch doctor
2. A lawyer who can review the records.