The family of a 6-year-old boy with brain damage has settled a medical malpractice lawsuit for $30 million involving a doctor who allegedly performed several experimental surgeries on the patient.
The final and 25th surgery performed by Dr. Mark Holterman in 2011 left the child with an irreversible brain injury and cerebral palsy, according to a news release from the family’s attorneys at Chicago-based Romanucci & Blandin.
Holterman, who did not return a phone call seeking comment, was on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago and also worked for Chicago-based Rush University Medical Center, another teaching hospital, while he was caring for the boy, according to court documents. Rush was named as a defendant in the Cook County suit, which was brought by the boy’s mother, Ethel Chavez. UIC was not a defendant in the amended complaint.
Rush said in a statement that it takes “pride in providing exceptional care” and is “deeply saddened.” The medical center said it chose to settle the case, which was about to go to trial, “in the best interest of this child and the family.”
“This case involves a young child with a very complicated medical history who received care at another hospital where multiple efforts were made over the years to correct the child’s medical condition,” the medical center said. “After the parents transferred the child to Rush in 2010, one of the treatment procedures did not go as hoped. As a result of his condition, the child will require lifelong care.”
Rush also said Holterman “is a highly skilled physician who left our hospital to pursue other professional opportunities in December 2011.”
Holterman is on the faculty of the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria.
The settlement ranks as the fourth largest payment in Illinois for a medical malpractice case involving a child, according to attorneys for the Chavez family.
The child was born in November 2009 with a leak in his esophagus and other conditions that were not life-threatening, said Antonio Romanucci, one of the family’s attorneys. At the time the family lived in North Riverside.
The suit alleged that Holterman was negligent when he performed a second operation less than a month after the first surgery to repair the leak, which had been conducted the day after the boy was born.
Over the next 17 months, Holterman operated 24 more times on the baby, including placing and replacing a stent in his esophagus. Using a stent to fix a leak in a child’s esophagus is an unproven method, the suit said.
In the final surgery performed at Rush, Holterman used a suturing device to attempt to repair the esophagus, which was an inappropriate, off-label use of the device, the news release said. Holterman punctured the boy’s pulmonary artery, the suit said.
“The fact that Dr. Holterman continually deviated from the standard of care and repeatedly exposed this young boy to the hazards of surgery and risky, novel operations was not only medically careless and personally irresponsible, but it also demonstrated a dramatic lack of oversight from the hospital,” Stephan Blandin, an attorney for the family, said in a statement.
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