quot;Kidney Failurequot; Scenario: A patient with chronic kidney failure

required continual dialysis treatment.

“Kidney Failure”Scenario: A patient with chronic kidney failure required continual dialysis
treatment. As such, hemodialysis catheters, also called access grafts, were surgically
inserted in the patient’s arms. These access grafts eventually caused problems and needed
to be removed by a vascular surgeon. After the procedure, the patient was hospitalized and
he suffered two incidents where he bled copiously from a surgery site in his left arm. The
bleeding was stopped with pressure dressings, and the patient received a blood transfusion.
The patient was hospitalized for four additional days for observation. He had no other
episodes of bleeding, he received his dialysis treatment fine, ate well, and had good vital
signs—therefore, the patient was dismissed from the hospital. The physician’s discharge
summary noted the patient had been instructed on how to apply pressure if his arm should
bleed and was told to call his physician if problems occurred.Upon returning home, the
patient had two bleeding incidents. Pressure was applied and the site was wrapped with
gauze. No one called the physician to report the two bleeding incidents. The next day, the
patient was left alone while his wife went to run some errands. When she returned home
about 30 minutes later, she found her husband dead, lying in a pool of blood. The patient
died from loss of blood caused by hemorrhaging from the incision in his left arm. His wife
filed a wrongful death suit against the physician.