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Case Overview:

A woman came in for a surgery to repair an incisional hernia. The first day post op she called complaining of nausea. The nurse prescribed her medication for the nausea and told her to come in the next day if it had not improved. She called again, second day post op, explaining her nausea had improved, but she complained that she was dehydrated and the nurse told her that she needed to drink water. The third day post op she called again and complained she could not void and the nurse told her, if it didn’t improve, to come in the next day to have a catheter placed. The patient did not call or come in that following day. Five days post op she came into the ER and they discovered a bowel perforation. The doctors performed a laparotomy to clean out her abdomen and repair the bowel. She ended up having two additional procedures to help clean out any infection and secure the repair of her hernia. The plaintiffs felt that there was a bowel perforation caused by the initial hernia repair surgery and that it should have been diagnosed sooner. The defense explained that based on her symptoms that she described to the nurse in all of phone calls post op they could not have diagnosed a bowel perforation, that the symptoms would have been more severe if she had the bowel perforation immediately post op. The jury found in favor of the defense.