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Jury awards Ohio woman's kin $4.1 million for missed infection

Infection Control Monitor, March 11, 2004

A jury awarded $4.1 million March 9 to the family of a 45-year-old Finneytown, OH, woman whose abdominal infection was misdiagnosed by two surgeons, leading to her death, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

The verdict, about $1.3 million higher than lawyers requested, is considered one of the largest such awards in the county. The family of Kimberly Howcroft sued Lawrence Bartish, MD, and Victor Van Gilse, MD, in 2001 for failing to properly diagnose and treat an aggressive form of soft tissue infection in her abdominal area. The infection developed after Howcroft had surgery in February 2001 at Mercy Franciscan Hospital Mount Airy for a ruptured appendix.

The jury found that Bartish and Van Gilse, partners in a medical practice, failed to recognize and properly treat Howcroft's infection in subsequent post-operative exams. Howcroft died less than a week after Bartish performed the initial surgery.

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