Archive for June 4th, 2009

Bruce Hunt

Joplin, MO — Attorney Bruce Hunt successfully defended a Joplin, MO internist against allegations he directly contributed to cause a woman’s death in late December, 2001.

Decedent Alta Fern Brown was admitted by neurosurgeon Hish Majzoub, M.D. through the emergency room at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin, MO on November 23, 2001.  Following a CT scan, Mrs. Brown was diagnosed as having a intracerebellar hemorrhagic stroke.  She was started on Decadron, a high-potency corticosteroid,  to reduce edema caused by the stroke.  An emergent ventriculostomy was performed by Dr. Majzoub to relieve the increased intracranial pressure.  On November 27, Mrs. Brown underwent a suboccipital craniotomy to evacuate the hematoma from her brain.  Mrs. Brown made “dramatic steady improvement” following the craniotomy and was transferred to the Skilled Nursing Unit at Freeman Hospital on December 7, 2001 where she was to continue her recovering from her stroke.  Her Decadron dosage was decreased upon transfer.

On December 20, 2001, nurses at Freeman noted brownish drainage coming from the previously healed craniotomy site.  They attempted to contact Dr. Bettasso once by phone and made no other attempts to get him involved until December 25 when her neurological status worsened.  When Dr. Bettasso saw her on the 25th, he immediately suspected an infection and started her on antibiotics.  He also had her transferred to the ICU at St. John’s. Read the rest of this entry »