My question involves medical malpractice in the state of: Florida
Well, first post. Me and my wife had our baby 3 Weeks ago in Shands Teaching Hospital. We went in for induction around 1PM on the 28'th of April and had a helathy 8Lb 2Oz baby boy at 9:43PM on the 29'th after 32 Hours in labor she pushed him out in 14 Minutes.
I wish I could say it was a pleasant experience delivering her first child, however, the first attending physician that came in to our room and started performing procedures was Dr. Rodriguez, He was very rough I noticed in the first exam he kind of jammed his fingers in very fast/rough/hard with barely any surgical lube. That hurts... I'm no woman and it hurt me. Made my chest tight to see that doctor get rough with her like that. We figured hey this is different than the OB, this is medical induction and maybe it's just how they operate here. So we shrugged it off as it wasn't that bad. Well after the second exam, which was much rougher than the first, more intense jamming and no explanation of what was going on or what he was doing. This is 3 hours after the first exam and the first pill that is supposed to dilate her cervix has been in. She had still not dilated so he put another pill in and said he would be back in 3 hours. HEr blood pressure I noticed was abnormally high, indicating stress. I did my best to calm her down and relax her for the rest of the labor. About 3 hours or more later he came to do the third exam, as soon as he entered the room my chest tightened and I had to leave, I could not witness another of his exams without worrying about physically harming him myself. Knowing what I know now i'd break every one of his fingers, Twice. Upon returning to the room I noticed she was on her side and her eyes were red like she was upset, she was whimpering from pain. Not from contractions, from the EXAMS. She told me what happened, she said that he did the same thing, jabbed in hard and deep without proper lubrication and she said when she pushed up with her arms to back up in the bed so he couldn't get so deep that he pushed his elbow down onto her thigh to hold her down and with his other hand pushed down on the baby and said that it hurt her stomach too. Like I said, I'd have broken every one of his fingers, TWICE. After I heard that I was very upset, my chest was tight and I felt an anxiety attack coming on. I can only imagine how stressed she was. I told the nursing staff and requested another physician and when he came in I told him he was fired and to GTFO. The attending nurse checked her blood pressure when he came in that last time and indicated that it was elevated due to his presence, and all of this is logged in their computerized database. All blood pressure, contractions, and fetal heart rate. Well it was about 3AM and I told the nursing staff that we wanted the anesthesiologist, He came in earlier and talked to us and told us about the 3 types of pain medicine etc etc, we knew about this already. He then presented a form as 'this just explains that i told you about the 3 options, sign here' He gave no chance to read the form, which later turned out to be a waiver. This was, of course, signed under duress and would not stand up. But we will get to that in a moment. So he came in (the anesthesiologist) and we opted for morphine as it would make her and the baby sleep and rest up for the rest of the labor. At about 6AM a new doctor came in with the shift change and we gave permission for a vaginal exam. Still no change in cervix dilation and only a small change in effacement (from the pills). Once that doctor did the exam and she said it didn't hurt at all I was steaming mad. After that though she was fine and relaxed and as she relaxed I did as well. Well after another 3 hours when the new doctor came back her cervix had dilated to 3, the first change since her induction and we are 100% sure it is due to stress caused by Rodriguez. After all of that pain naturally and the slow cervical dilation we opted after 16 hours of contractions to get an epidural.
The anesthesiologist comes in and we talk it over, he shakes my hand and promises he'll take care of my girl and we overhear his supervisor talking about a c section he is supposed to run an epidural for. Well we said it's ok go do that one so you cna take your time and do it right, he says it's no problem i've done hundreds of these we can do it real quick. I say no dont do it quick, do it right and take your time. He was very pushy and said lets just get it done now and she was in a lot of pain and said it's ok, I TRUST HIM, and We consented to an epidural. Well the first one went into a bunch of nerves and she said it felt weird and her back was spazzing. He did a test dose of blood pressure medicine and her heart rate spiked to over 170 in just a few seconds, they then said oh well that may be a false positive and decided to give her 2 more test doses of this medicine before removing it and then doing it ALL OVER AGAIN. The guy threw the stuff out there on the bed and I could tell he was rushing it. Now she says when she bends or moves a certain way she feels that exact same tinge that she felt with the first failed epidural.
Well that's all of the issues really until birth, which was 14 hours after getting another doc.
If it had been a good doctor from the beginning I think she would have had a much shorter labor and not had to have had the epidural just so she could sleep to get enough energy to push and That's why I think this is going to result in Malpractice and or Criminal charges being filed against the doctor, the anesthesiologist and the hospital.
After all of that is said and done and we have the baby, she breastfeeds for only 30 minutes before the nurses (which came in every 5 mins and asked the same thing rushing us) finally convinced us to let them take him to the nursery for his quick checkup. Well we got anxious after 30-45mins and called the nurse and she called down there to the nursery and said that they were bathing him so we said ok, thats fine. Who doesn't want a clean baby after birth, right? Well another hour passes and we call back down to the nurse and she says oh hes just getting out of the bath they told me and it will be 30 minutes before he warms up under the lights. Now keep in mind this child has been gone for 2.5 hours at this point and we gave explicit instructions for no bottles no pacifiers. Well we get him back finally and we are being transferred over to the hospital across the street, the brand new building. It's a state of the art smart building, beautiful. We get itno a brand new room that has never even been used by another patient and things seem to be looking up. Until the nurse from the new building says that she has to take him off for a bath. We say woah wait we already waited over 2 hours for him to have a bath. And she says that transfers dont get baths because they might catch draft in the underground tunnel on the way over (which is heated/cooled and resembles a hallway more than anything) And she says ok, let me check. She pulls off his little hat and HE STILL HAD AFTERBIRTH ON HIS HAIR, he had not been washed. He laid there crying for 2.5 hours in the nursery and by the time we got him he was so exhausted he didn't want to latch on, indicating that either someone had given him a bottle of formula or sugar water or a pacifier causing him to forget the breast. Either way I was furious, I ran to the other hospital and asked for the nurse and told her and she was like OMG they told me they were bathing him. She called them and they said it was a mistake that they CONFUSED HIM WITH ANOTHER CHILD. So I demanded to talk to the supervisor, walked up to the desk next to the nursery and gave them all a little piece, er, Big piece of my mind. After being up for 32 hours. I have a written statement from one of the nurses explaining that she thought they were bathing another baby but it wasn't ours.
Anyways after that I went back to the other hospital to spend some time with my wife and our new son. When I got in I was surprised she was still up. After 32 hours in labor I thought she'd be asleep. Well to make a long story a little shorter. After all that we stayed up with him the rest of the night, 5 some odd hours teaching him how to breastfeed because he was held too long from us and forgot how to latch. He lost 9 ounces that night to the next morning and was not even back up to birthweight 2 weeks later because of that slow start.
I had to be the strong one through all of this for her but, honestly, I went downstairs and cried not letting her know. This whole experience upset me very badly. I'm glad she pushed him out in 14 minutes. All of the kegal exercises paid off, we went all out on this baby, our first, and ate only organic whole foods, no prescription drugs, exercise, everything. He is perfect and healthy and Exclusively Breastfed.
I dont want this to happen to any other woman or family. We need a strong lawyer that will try our case or at least legal advice. Please do not flame or say anything derogatory, we are good people that have been mistreated and in my honest opinion deserve compensation.
What do you think?
Thanks so much for reading and replying.

