Rafael Said:

Is this considered malpractice? Worthy of a lawsuit?

We Answered:

This may be a difficult case...first, an arthroscopy is the "gold standard" by which all other tests are judged and MRI is the closest thing to it. Although I don't agree with NOT performing the MRI before surgery, arguing that an MRI was not done before surgery MIGHT not be the best arguement. Certainly, many knee surgeries were done before MRI ever came a long...many of which were sucessful.

Second, you would need to prove that a surgeon went outside the standard of care and that it was THAT which resulted in your boyfriend's continued disability. Every surgical procedure comes with a risk...its certainly possible to have a bad outcome even when the standard of care was followed...this was hopefully divulged to your boyfriend. If not, you may have grounds for non-disclosure.

Otherwise, you'll have to have someone identify where the standard of care was broken. Also, there will need to be some type of evidence of damage. Him saying he's in pain, but with a clean MRI does not look good. If they are claiming "nerve damage" I would assume he's had some type of EMG or NCV test. This would give your case more support if it came back with a finding that supports his claim.

Good luck.

Bruce Said:

What is the max amount of time you can wait for ligament surgery?

We Answered:

forget the suing thing, you can have surgery if necessary but at this point it would be a reconstruction and not a repair

Darrell Said:

Grounds for a malpractice lawsuit?

We Answered:

Even if you're sure "beyond a shadow of a doubt," any half-decent, just-ouf-of-law-school defense attorney will have a total field day with this. There were *five* surgeries, as you know, and causation is a required element of a negligence cause of action. (med mal, med negligence - all the same thing.)

And it gets worse. The initial injury is nothing to sneeze at, either.

The 14 suits against one surgeon is largely irrelevant to a civil lawsuit.

The mere fact that surgeon 1 failed to do an x-ray prior to surgery is worthless without an causative link to the injury. How can you prove that this failure *caused* the injury? And how can you prove that the injury resulted from his failure to do an x-ray? And causation is going to be your downfall here.

Finally, even if the first surgeon was negligent, I'm sure the 4 subsequent surgeries were not exactly helpful to the health of the knee.

Bottom line: you have at least 6 events that could have caused the injury (initial injury + f5 surgeries.) In terms of common sense, yes, you and I can look at this and say surgeon 1 is at fault. But legally, it's not that easy.

BUT, all this is almost certainly moot - you've probably missed the statute of limitations for a med mal action.

Not the answer you want, I know. Sorry.