Hospital Not at Fault in Kidney Transplant Case
side note: A jury in New York failed to find a hospital guilty of medical malpractice in the case of a man who developed cancer after receiving a kidney transplant from a donor who was later shown to have cancer. In a unique case, the organ donor, who died of a stroke, was shown to have uterine cancer during an autopsy. Not normally transferable to a male recipient, doctors thought that there was little chance the man would develop cancer. Though the kidney recipient ultimately died of cancer, experts were unable to agree on exactly what had happened and what type of cancer he had developed.
One thing is certain, however, and that is that the doctors and hospital provided the best advice they could in a strange situation. For medical liability cases such as this, there is no cut-and-dried list of procedures or protocols that physicians and hospitals could have followed. At some point, physicians must simply be able to rely on their training and their best judgment.
With advances in medicine and health care, these kinds of one-of-a-kind cases may become more and more common, making it even more important to have the best medical malpractice insurance available. Check out rates for states and specialties here: Medical Malpractice Insurance Rates by State. Also, keep checking for our frequent updates on medical malpractice-related news.
Jennifer Peltz
Associated Press Writer
Via Chicago Tribune
NEW YORK (AP) — A prominent organ-transplant hospital wasn’t to blame for the death of a man who became riddled with cancer after getting a kidney from a donor who unknowingly had uterine cancer, jurors found Friday.
