Arizona residents may have heard about an especially egregious case of medical malpractice that occurred in Detroit. What makes the case even worse is the behavior of the practitioner involved in the case was intentional and affected 550 victims.
According to sources, a 50-year-old doctor had been prescribing chemotherapy treatment courses to patients who did not require it. Some never even had the disease, while others had cancer but did not require an aggressive therapeutic approach. As a result of receiving the unneeded chemotherapy, some patients permanently lost teeth and some died.
Reportedly, the doctor did it in a drive to fraudulently claim insurance payments. All together, he received $34.7 million in payments for the more than 2,000 chemotherapy treatments he prescribed. He was discovered by another doctor who he had hired to join the medical malpractice. Upon reviewing charts, that doctor blew the whistle and the offender was given criminal charges. The 50-year-old doctor was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 45 years in prison. He additionally turned over $17 million towards restitution and will still likely be ordered to pay more.
Misdiagnosis of a patient and giving them the wrong medications can cause very serious injury. While in most cases such errors are unintentional, many people still suffer real harm when their doctors make them. A person who has suffered a serious injury from a misdiagnosis or from being provided with the wrong medications may want to consider filing a civil medical malpractice lawsuit. In this type of action, injured victims may seek damages to compensate them for both their economic and noneconomic losses. Those who are in this situation may thus want to seek the help of an attorney in preparing the claim and providing representation in court proceedings.
Source Yahoo, “Dr. Farid Fata sentenced to 45 years in prison as cancer misdiagnosis victims tell all,” Jenna Birch, July 10, 2015