Ben Carson's patients claim malpractice in star doctor's path to politics

[mfcorey1]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ben-carsons-patients-claim-malpractice-in-star-doctors-path-to-politics/ar-BBj92LH?ocid=mailsignout

When Karly Bailey was seven, she began experiencing headaches, an ailment later discovered to be caused by a brain tumor. In November 1995, she underwent surgery to remove the tumor; a shunt, essentially a passageway, was placed inside her head to address a buildup of fluid, and she went on living a relatively normal life.

“I was riding [horses] and fishing and camping,” she said. “My only medication was multivitamins.”

But two years later, Bailey started experiencing headaches again. Her tumor had regrown. So she was introduced to Carson, who, in July 1997, determined her shunt had failed.

According to a pending lawsuit against him in Baltimore City circuit court, her parents said they explained to Carson “they were deeply concerned about what they knew to be significant risks of collateral injury associated with attempting to remove all [of her] tumor” and to avoid a full resection.

According to the Bailey family, Carson was blunt in his response.

“Before my surgery ... he came out and told my parents, ‘I will follow your surgical guidelines in your surgery – my goal is not to kill your kid,’” Bailey, now 26, told the Guardian in an interview.

What happened next is in dispute, but Bailey contends Carson, in surgery performed that August, invaded her brain stem, which led to life-changing nerve damage.

Carson says that he performed a complex, detailed surgery and that Bailey’s parents were made aware of the risks associated with it.

“[L]ike always, I consulted them on the fact that I would remove as much tumor as was reasonably safe,” Carson said in a sworn affidavit. In an operative report, Carson said, he wrote he attempted to “remove all visible tumor”, which he described as removing what was “reasonably safe”.

But as a result of the surgery, according to Bailey’s court filing, “Carson severely disturbed, injured, or destroyed multiple neuronal circuits controlling the patient’s facial motor functions, horizontal gaze movements, and other psychological functions.”

When she woke up, Bailey said she was partially paralyzed on the right side of her body.

“I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t talk, you couldn’t understand me at all,” she told the Guardian. Previously, she wrote right-handed; post-surgery, she has learned how to write left-handed.

Bailey left the hospital using a wheelchair and underwent a grueling physical therapy process, five days a week for seven months.

“I missed most of my fourth grade year of school,” said Bailey, 26. “I was homeschooled – tutored, really. I tested mentally retarded. I was really depressed because I was in a wheelchair.”

Her face developed a significant droop as a result of nerve damage, she said: “I don’t have a full smile. People ask me if I’ve had a stroke.”

[shenmue]

1. ...

[951-Riverside]

2. Just yesterday there was an odd post on this forum praising him as a doctor

I can't find it though.