$________ Medical malpractice - Hospital negligence - Negligent credentialing and supervision - Wrongful death of woman following transabdominal laparoscopic cyroablation.

Brooke County, West Virginia

In this matter, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant hospital was negligent in permitting the surgeons to perform a procedure which neither had performed before without properly supervising and credentialing the surgeons. The defendant denied the allegations.

The female decedent underwent a procedure at the defendant hospital called a transabdominal laparoscopic cyroablation to freeze a lesion located on her kidney. The decedent’s doctors suspected that the lesion was cancerous, although tests did not confirm that she had cancer. The plaintiff alleged that neither of the surgeons who performed the procedure had ever performed that procedure before operating on the decedent. During the surgery, the surgeons perforated the decedent’s stomach and she later died as a result of the infection that developed.

The plaintiff alleged that the defendant surgeons were negligent and that the hospital was negligent for failing to properly credential and supervision the surgeons. The plaintiff also alleged that the surgeons and the hospital failed to inform the plaintiff that the doctors had never performed the procedure before and therefore, they did not have informed consent from the decedent.

The defendants denied the allegations. The defendant hospital maintained that in lieu of peer review, it held public meetings. The defendants agreed to permit judgment in the amount of $________ to be entered against the hospital in favor of the plaintiff. The plaintiff had settled with the surgeons in a confidential settlement prior to this matter.