In March of 2016, the then lead singer of Jefferson Airplane, Marty Balin, was rushed to the emergency room at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital due to complaints of severe chest pain. What followed was a nightmare far beyond what he could have imagined.

Doctors performed open-heart surgery, which included a triple bypass and a valve replacement that forced Balin into the intensive-care unit (ICU) for recovery – the one place in any hospital that requires the most specialized and supervised care. What doctors had failed to tell him upon admission was that the hospital was in the process of closing, and they were severely understaffed.

In 2013, wrestler and reality TV star Hulk Hogan filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the Laser Spine Institute and several of its surgeons in Tampa, claiming that they rendered inappropriate care that damaged his wrestling career due to them performing unnecessary surgeries on him. Additionally, the Institute used Hogan’s endorsement without his permission, prompting him to seek damages of $50 million.

Mount Sinai Hospital is a well-known hospital that borders on Manhattan’s East Harlem and Yorkville neighborhoods. Originally founded in 1852, the center now includes the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, which currently ranks among America’s top 20 medical schools. Unfortunately, this ranking isn’t enough to prevent medical malpractice from occurring at the hospital, and one of its more shocking cases involved the in-utero death of an infant.

On 13 December 2017, Jana Diaz arrived at Mount Sinai’s Midwood’s facility in Brooklyn at 1 am due to cramps and bleeding. The hospital did not have a maternity ward or an OBGYN on staff, and no one was immediately called when it became apparent that they did not have the knowledge or facilities needed to treat Jana correctly. In fact, Jana states that it took 90 minutes for the emergency care doctor-on-call to see her and perform an exam and that her unborn baby’s heart rate had dropped to 104 by then. Despite this, Jana says that the hospital staff was more concerned with ensuring that her paperwork was being correctly filled in as opposed to managing her clinically. Jana’s lawyer states that as a clear obstetrical emergency, an emergency C-section should have been performed immediately.

Known as one of the best hospitals in New York City, the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) is considered a leading orthopedic, rheumatology, and neurological care facility. Unfortunately, medical malpractice can still occur in medical centers with such stellar reputations, as evidenced by Bethany Flanders and her filing of a medical malpractice lawsuit against one of the hospital’s doctors.

When Bethany Sanders was 13 years old, she underwent spinal surgery to help treat her serious scoliosis. Despite being doubled over and barely able to walk, Bethany could still see and had normal vision before undergoing the seven-hour operation; however, Bethany came out of the surgery unable to see – a possible surgical side-effect that surgeon Oheneba Boachie-Adjei failed to disclose to her and her family. Additionally, the informed consent form required for such a surgery was never presented to Bethany and her parents, nor was it signed.

When the terms “medical malpractice” and “medical malpractice lawsuit” are mentioned, visions of patients and their families suffering needlessly are the first that come to mind. However, fellow doctors are just as vulnerable to medical malpractice at the hands of their colleagues.

In 2014, Steven Stuchin, a renowned orthopedic surgeon, became a victim of New York University Langone Medical Center, when he was forced to undergo a battery of assessments, including neurological testing, in a bid to dismiss him from his position. Stuchin, who was 66 years old at the time, had a “stellar” reputation as an experienced doctor at NYU’s Langone Hospital for Joint Diseases and as an associate NYU professor. He claims that he was treated like an “old bag of bones” after two higher-ups decided that he was too old to continue working, despite there being no valid reason.