What a Medical Malpractice Verdict Reveals About Safety
Nicole Kruegel, Esq., was featured in commentary examining what a significant medical malpractice verdict in Maine reveals about hospital safety policies, communication failures, and the treatment of patients reporting worsening symptoms.
The coverage centers on the case of Robert Giordano, who went to an emergency room after a fall and underwent a CT scan. According to the trial evidence discussed in the article, the imaging showed a bony growth affecting his spinal canal, but the finding was missed and the hospital’s critical-results escalation process was not triggered. As his condition deteriorated, his complaints of increasing pain and repeated falls were not connected to the earlier imaging. He later became paralyzed from the chest down.
Kruegel uses the case to highlight two broader patient-safety concerns: the importance of consistently enforcing critical-results policies and the risks of discounting patients who report serious or worsening pain. She emphasizes that written safety protocols are only effective when they are followed in practice and that clinicians should reconsider existing imaging when symptoms progress.
The coverage matters because it illustrates how failures in communication, follow-through, and clinical judgment can combine to produce preventable harm, while underscoring the importance of systems designed to keep critical findings from being overlooked.
Rafferty Domnick Cunningham & Yaffa continues its work on matters involving medical malpractice and patient safety.
