[This story was originally published by www.10news.com San Diego and is no longer available]
When a San Diego man died from an ear infection, his family took a closer look at the professionals in white coats who cared for him. What they found could be a lifesaver for others.
A grieving widow gave a deposition.
Her husband was a father and grandfather.
He was a victim, she said, of a failed medical system.
“What went wrong with the Oswalds was Terry Oswald only saw a physician’s assistant and never saw a physician,” said attorney Virginia Nelson.
Oswald never saw a physician at one of San Diego’s busiest hospital emergency rooms — Kaiser Permanente.
The physician’s assistants were not adequately supervised in the way they were treating patients or in the drugs they were giving to patients.
Oswald went to Kaiser’s emergency room twice complaining of an ear infection.
Both times, physician’s assistants who were less than sympathetic saw him.
“He (the physician’s assistant) proceeded to say ‘All men are babies,'” said Terry Oswald’s wife, Jean.
Days later, Oswald was rushed to another emergency room.
Oswald had a massive infection running rampant through his body.
It was an infection that killed him.
Jean Oswald sued Kaiser over her husband’s death and won in arbitration.
The arbitrator said physician’s assistants ignored hospital protocol, and the Oswalds were awarded $378,466.
Wow. I never saw this one. Thank you so much for keeping track of all the Kaiser news.
This is remniscent of Kaiser’s big Hawaii medicare fraud fine related to billing for an assistant as if he were a physician. I’ve always wondered if Kaiser told the patients this guy was a physician or whether they were just tampering with the paperwork to cheat Medicare.
Maybe all of the facts should be looked at before passing judgment. Most of the time Physician Assistants provide much better care than regular physicians. PAs have entered the profession because they genuinely want to help people, not just get a nice fat paycheck.
Not only have I personally been treated by PA numerous times and actually prefer them to the MDs for the most part, but I actually decided to become one because of this contact I had with several Kaiser PAs.