The case involved the death of a 24-year-old African American man in November 2017. The patient collapsed and died shortly after walking into the emergency room of the hospital for the third time in 3 months. The first time he came in he had complaints of chest pains, radiating down his left arm, which started while he was playing basketball. During the first ER visit, a doctor diagnosed him with costochondritis and sent him home with low-grade pain relievers. Costochondritis is an inflammation of the cartilage that connects a rib to the breastbone.
The next month, he returned to the same emergency room with the same complaints, again occurring while playing basketball. This time, the emergency room doctor considered a cardiac condition as the possible cause, so he ordered an EKG and a chest X-ray, both of which were read to be normal. This time the patient was diagnosed with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and he was sent home with a prescription for Zantac.
He lived symptom-free for one more month before returning to the hospital for the third time. He collapsed and died shortly after he arrived for the third time. An autopsy revealed he died from a clot in his left anterior descending artery caused by undiagnosed coronary artery disease. This undiagnosed cardiac condition was the central issue in the case.
The defendant in the case was the doctor involved in the second emergency room visit. The plaintiff argued that more comprehensive tests should have been done during the second ER visit to rule out a cardiac condition. This included checking the patient’s troponin levels, admitting him to the hospital, and performing a cardiac catheterization to rule out coronary artery disease. The defense contended that, at age 24, the patient did not have risk factors for cardiac problems, his EKG was normal, and it was reasonable to diagnose GERD. The jury determined otherwise.
The patient was unmarried but left behind a three-year-old daughter.
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