Medical Malpractice

A man waited for nine hours in the hospital while his wife underwent complex surgery. The surgeon, haggard and blood spattered, approached and said that he had good news and bad news. Actually there were two pieces of bad news. In the first instance, the wife's spinal cord had inadvertently been severed in the cervical region such that she was paralyzed from the neck down and lacked control over most of her bodily functions. Secondly, the anesthesia had been administered improperly such that oxygen to the brain had been woefully inadequate. As a result, the wife was all but in a vegetative state. She had just enough brain activity to be considered legally alive but otherwise would never regain awareness of her surroundings. In sum, the husband faced the prospect of a future of cleaning up after and caring for his quadriplegic and nearly brain dead wife. "What is the good news?" he asked the surgeon who replied, "I'm kidding; she's dead."