Another question...

May 10, 2005

Has anyone ever filed a malpractice claim against a doctor that did

not treat your child properly? I know we have parents on here that

first sought treatment with non-ponsetti doctors. Going through all

of this with Ian again at 17 months just has me wondering. At times I

feel so angry at the original doctor we went to . I'm not planning on

doing anything about it, but was just wondering. I do plan on writting

the original doctor a letter explaining why we no longer go to him.

Anyone done this? I could use some help with wording.

Anne

May 11, 2005

Anne,

After we switched doctors, I sent my original ortho a letter stating why

we switched. I will paste it below to give you some ideas. Just some

background: the FAB/DBB was slipping off her feet constantly and our doc

did nothing to help us or guide us. At one point he told us to take her

socks off to help keep her feet from slipping. So naive us listened to

him thinking doc knows best. Well in less than 24 hours had

blisters the size of M&M's all over her feet. It was aweful, and I just

cried. That still wasn't the end, we went to the orthotist to get some

help from him and he recommended the AFO's (big no-no w/Ponseti Method).

So again, naive us thought how great they would be and easier things would

be for not knowing she would eventually relapse. Finally I had

enough and found this site-Thank Goodness!!! So now we go to one of the

best, next to Ponseti.

August 24, 2004

L. Hanway, M.D.

Commonwealth Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation

8501 Arlington Blvd. Suite 400

Fairfax, VA 22031

Dear Dr. Hanway:

With keeping our best interest for our child in mind, we have decided to

continue treatment for Shook elsewhere. After doing in depth

research on clubfoot and the Ponseti Method treatment of clubfoot, we felt

she was not getting optimum results.

We have started treatment with Dr. Herzenberg in Baltimore, MD. I am

sure you are aware of his credentials and expertise in clubfoot treatment

and limb lengthening. At â€™s first visit with Dr. Herzenberg, he

spent an hour looking carefully at her feet and took extensive x-rays of

her feet, and ultimately determined her feet were not completely corrected

in the first place and that is part of the reason the shoes and DBB were

not staying on. Which, I might add you were absolutely no help to us in

that area and recommending us to take her socks off was positively the

worst decision you ever made. In addition, the dorsiflexion is not to Dr.

Herzenbergâ€™s satisfaction either and another tenotomy will have to be

performed. is currently in casts again because we are starting

over. We have lost 5 months and poor has to go through this all

over again.

My recommendation to you: I contacted Dr. Ponseti himself and he has no

knowledge of you nor are you listed on his website as an authorized doctor

to use his method. If I were you, I would contact Dr. Ponseti himself and

do what he recommends to be apart of his forum. In fact he is having

another conference in November. I truly believe you understand the

positive results of the Ponseti Method and choose to practice it, however,

you need to fine-tune your efforts and physically study this method more

closely so patients like do not have to go through this process

again, relapse or have future surgery(ies).

Good luck to you on your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

and Shook

Since that letter, I also wrote to Dr. Ponseti to let him know Dr. Hanway

was butchering his method. Dr. Ponseti personally sent Dr. Hanway a

letter leaving me anonymous. Dr. Ponseti recently followed-up with me

stating he never received a response from Dr. Hanway. I told him I wasn't

surprised. Some of these doctors have some nerve!! Meanwhile, there are

several parents and babies who have left Dr. Hanway and switched to Dr.

Herzenberg because Hanway was butchering their childrens feet.

To answer your ultimate question; no I have not filed for malpractice.

Even though he has terrorized some clubfeet, the fact of the matter is,

clubfoot treatment is such a small part of his practice in the grand

scheme of things. Pediatric Orthos do so many other treatments: broken

bones, sprains, hip displacia, scoliosis, etc, etc. Honestly, how do we

know for sure if one of those other areas is his area of expertise or

specialties? Obviously clubfoot isn't. I think it would take a lot of

research to ultimately determine if he is unfit to practice. And, as sad

as this is to say, were our babies feet permanently ruined? In some very

few cases they may have been. But in most cases they were fixable with

another doctor. Or did your babies feet have to be castrated due to his

malpractice? I am only thinking from a lawyer or judges point of view.

Just another way of looking at it. Believe me, I am with you and I'm sure

many others on this board, about wanting to do something more about bad

clubfoot treatment from previous doctors. I think the only way or best

way to go about it is to try to educate those doctors more about the

Ponseti Method. There are many that have huge egos and won't take

constructive criticism, but you have to keep trying in hopes they will

come around someday.

Shook

Retail Operations Manager/Baking Instructor

Vie de France Yamazaki, Inc.

2070 Chain Bridge Rd. Suite 500

Vienna, VA 22182

x374

fax

May 11, 2005

We didn't look into malpractice because of our child, but we did for my

husband. I've mentioned that he has had two heart surgeries in the

past two years...to fix Mitral Valve Prolapse. Usually it only takes

one surgery to fix this, but his first doctor stitched something too

tight, or just incorrectly, and it caused a tear that resulted in a new

leak that resulted in a second surgery. (keep in mind, this is open

heart surgery; his heart was stopped, he was put on a heart/lung

machine, they took his heart out of his body, fixed it and put it back

and then started his heart up again) There is also a possiblity that

had a seizure because of the problems with the first surgery,

although the neurologist can't say that for certain because he didn't

see before the first surgery and doesn't know what the make-up

of his brain looked like before.

We went so far as to talk to a lawyer about it, and even asked his

second cardiologist and second surgeon what they thought. We opted not

to persue this, but did as his second surgeon and cardiologist to send

his medical records over to his first surgeon so she could see what

happened, and hopefully learn from the mistake. We never contacted her

directly, and thankfully, 's current cardiologist was very happy

to share the information, and was willing to discuss things with her if

she wanted to.

We really didn't want to be involved any more beyond that, but that was

largely due to the fact that I was pregnant and we were busy with

happier things once he was done with surgery and was finally back at

work again.

Perhaps having your current doctor send over any information they have

will be enough. I know sometimes medical professionals can be

arrogant, but perhaps hearing it from a fellow doctor will have more

impact than just hearing it from you...

> Has anyone ever filed a malpractice claim against a doctor that did

> not treat your child properly? I know we have parents on here that

> first sought treatment with non-ponsetti doctors. Going through all

> of this with Ian again at 17 months just has me wondering. At times I

> feel so angry at the original doctor we went to . I'm not planning

on

> doing anything about it, but was just wondering. I do plan on

writting

> the original doctor a letter explaining why we no longer go to him.

> Anyone done this? I could use some help with wording.

>

> Anne

May 11, 2005

,

Good letter, it's a pity your doctor didn't take your suggestion.

I raised this point a while ago because I had been wondering how much longer

these doctors can continue to do these things to other children of parents

who may not be aware of the Ponseti Method or this group.

It seems that they can do what they like with no consequences. If a doctor

isn't a clubfoot expert, why don't they refer their patient to a clubfoot

expert!! The same thing happens here in South Africa and the true Ponseti

doctors are getting really irritated about it. The way I see it, it's bad

practice and something should happen, I'm just not sure what.

And I don't see why clubfoot is not really high priority and gets pushed to

the back of the queue by these 'important' doctors are good at other more

'important' things. We were told by 's first doctor at our 1st

consultation that no one knows what causes clubfoot - and 'nobody has ever

bothered to find out, because it's so simple to fix'. It's not - unless you

are doing the Ponseti Method 100%!!! Otherwise it's complex surgery on an

incredibly small foot that isn't even fully formed yet (I have often read

that children's feet are only really 'solid' bone and formed around the age

of 3).

I get emails from people through my website who are adults living with pain

from recurring surgeries. And I have heard of children having not just one

surgery, but 2, 5 and 7 - for congenital clubfoot. It upsets me to read

these, but it upsets me even more that this is still happening today.

Just my thoughts, sorry I sound so frustrated (I am)!

and

www.clubfoot.co.za

www.steps.org.za

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