Assuming the facts you set forth in your question, it certainly sounds like the doctors breached accepted standards of medical care if they failed to investigate a hip injury given the complaints made by your husband. The question is whether they ignored your husband or whether they made a calculated decision to put off dealing with the hip injury until after they stabilized the spine. Another question is whether the delay in diagnosis has resulted in any real permanent injury. If they do not operate on the hip, then the failure to diagnose the injury was really meaningless, because they would not have done anything differently. Finally, assuming the hip is addressed through surgery now, one month of pain and suffering for a fractured hip in the context of a patient who is recuperating for a spinal injury is probably not a financially viable case because it would cost more in litigation costs and attorneys time than could possibly be recovered.
Answered on Nov 23rd, 2011 at 8:43 AM