$4M for Headache Misdiagnosis, Stroke
A Middlesex County jury awarded $4 million on Feb 4 to a woman found to have suffered a brain-damaging stroke because doctors failed to order tests for her headaches. Over seven days in June 1996, Carlene Foster complained of headaches and vomiting to three doctors at HIP of New Jersey in Edison and to an emergency room doctor at JFK Medical Center, and on June 12, she suffered a stroke.
The jury found each doctor 25 percent liable. Superior Court Judge Yolanda Ciccone presided at trial. Foster's expert testified that a CAT scan, which would have shown pre-aneurysm bleeding, should have been ordered. The defense contended that her symptoms could have been attributed to migraine headaches and that the doctors did not deviate from standards of care by not ordering a CAT scan.
(This information was obtained from the New Jersey Law Journal)
