Viet doctor hit with $16 million verdict
February 4th, 2010A Vietnamese-American neurosurgeon who failed to examine an emergency room patient until the next day was hit by a Riverside County jury with a $16.2 million medical malpractice verdict for leaving the man a paraplegic, reports The Desert Sun here.
Dr. Christopher Pham, D.O., was the neurosurgeon on call at Desert Regional Medical Center on November 2, 2003, when Trent Hughes, now 47, was brought in.
Hughes was off-roading in Glamis, Arizona, when he was when he hit a bump and began to experience searing pain in his lower back and numbness in his feet and toes, according to a press release by his lawyer here.
He was then airlifted to the hospital, where he was seen and diagnosed with a fracture with his spine.
The neurosurgeon on call that day was Pham. He was supposed to be in the hospital within 20 minutes of the call to evaluate Hughes’s condition, he didn’t show up.
In fact, Pham did not examine Hughes until the next day, and surgery was delayed to the day after that, two days after the injury.
“We had never received an adequate explanation of where (Pham) was and why he didn’t come, though he did maintain he was present,” said the lawyer representing the patient and his wife.
The couple sued, claiming the delay caused the damage to the spinal cord to become irreversible. They took both the hospital and the doctor to court for past and future lost earnings, medical costs and damages for pain and suffering.
The hospital settled for an undisclosed sum of money two years ago.
The doctor has not worked at Desert for at least two years. Apparently he’s in Florida now.
Tags: doctor, Viet in litigation
February 5th, 2010 at 6:41 am
how come they did not feature him on one of thui nga dvd??? please post his picture
February 5th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Asia didn’t invite him neither!
February 8th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
He thought that it was a Vietnamese patient as the medical doctors never worry about the malpractice or get sued by VNese !
The damages should be 10 times it was awarded to make sure they
care about the patients as they took the oath before practice medicine !
February 9th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
First, the health care system. Like everything that’s good and noble in life, hospitals are big business run by some bean counters in a corporate office. When money is a factor, it promotes behavior marked by selfishness and lack of collegiality. In medicine, mistakes are made and bad outcomes happen for multiple reasons. But the hospital is all about protecting itself and hospital attorneys are at the forefront to protect hospital interests, and not those of physicians. When the hospital decides to settle a case that the physician would actually prefer fighting it, the physician doesn’t really have a choice because it’s very expensive to afford one own attorney. So, the physician is not as protected against litigation as one might think. I’ve seen colleagues got screwed when the settlement exceeded the amount ($30,000) reportable to the medical board and then the physician would worry about the license.
Fear of malpractice lawsuits influences physicians to avoid high-risk specialties like obstetrics, and increasingly injecting Botox for wrinkles. If we really want to reform the health care system, it can’t be done by simply increase money damages. President Obama has identified all the problems with the health care system, and one reason health care is so expensive is because of malpractice litigation.
And finally, there’s jury system. It was a long time ago in medieval England, the jury system was created with the goal of finding twelve peers so unbiased of the trial they were judging. The problem is we’re still trying to find those people today. Currently, there are a few of our peers out there thinking a Caesarian section is some neighborhood in Rome, a terminal illness is getting sick at the airport, and all physicians are rich, overpaid, over-educated jerks! By sticking to this anachronistic system, aren’t we always ensuring a “fair” trial by twelve of our “unbiased” peers? Did you know, for example, that O.J. was not guilty?
Is there any of the jurors at this Dr. Pham trial has been a healthcare professional?
As the old folk wisdom goes, do you really believe in the wisdom of twelve people who couldn’t get out of the jury duty?
February 10th, 2010 at 11:30 am
The malpractice “cap” in California is $500,000
February 11th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
check out Van Son video. He was invited to the show.