Posted by Jay S. Grife, Attorney at Law on 11/06/05 12:45
I received the following email today and have made an automatic link to it everytime someone types "EPF" in a message. It would be interesting if a pro-EPF DPM could respond to this thread. - Scott
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Hi Scott:
As usual, I monitor your site and message boards and do thank you and your
staff for the support. I think this might help some of your readers and
posters as an update. Feel free to post this on your site. Please confirm
and send me the hyperlink if you post it.
Jay
The EPF procedure remains the most widely abused surgery performed by
podiatrists and other health care providers and is the source of multiple
complications which continue to permanently disable patients. As a rule, it
is performed by podiatrists but can be performed by anyone licensed in foot
surgery. Personally, I have seen young and old, healthy and ill, men and
women all put into a tremendous post-operative medical and economical
conundrum due to this surgery and its high failure rate. Not being able to
return to work can reek havoc on an entire family and often be the source
for family failures. The real issue as to the EPF procedure is what to do as
a patient prior to surgery and what to do if complications arise.
As to what to do before, I am now an attorney who represents patients
injured by foot surgery. I no longer practice medicine so I will simply
suggest that anyone contemplating any surgery for a heel problem, EPF, open
surgery, or any other variant they come up with, read, study, and listen to
the suggestions on heelspurs.com. You will not believe how truthful and
honest most of the posts actually are.
As far as afterward, if the surgery is successful, then thank the higher
powers and move on. You are lucky. Alternatively, IMMEDIATELY tell your
doctor about any signs or symptoms which seem different than those you were
hopefully explained before the surgery. These can be as minor as numbness or
coldness to as major as deep pain in the joints or bones. If after several
visits your doctor does not address the concerns, then seek a 2nd opinion.
Go to another doctor and simply tell that doctor what is wrong and seek
their opinion. Often times, it will be consoling to hear nothing is wrong.
But if there is something amiss, hopefully it can be caught early on. The
most common problems are highlighted in the heelspurs.com website and the
footlaw.com website.
Legally, successful cases with EPF have taken a turn southward. The problem
is proving to a jury that there is post-operative pain caused by the doctor
when a juror can look at the foot and see nothing is wrong visually.
Ridiculous you might say because you are telling the truth but in spite of
your veracity, that is what has been happening. We are consistently seeing
these types of cases lost because there is nothing for a juror to hang their
hat on; i.e. deformed bones, destructive x-rays etc. The cases where success
has been achieved is if there is nerve damage from the surgery and the
patient has seen a neurologist and done nerve studies and can show objective
problems. We were recently successful in an Atlanta case where the EPF
victim saw another doctor who opened up her entire foot along the heel area
and found a nerve cut and damaged by the EPF. He was able to repair it and
despite the 2nd successful surgery, the patient gained only 60% reduction in
post-operative pain. Overall, we are now accepting very few EPF cases
because of the above and I am afraid other lawyers are similarly restrained.
Someone has mentioned the possibility of a class action lawsuit. Personally
I like the idea. I believe there are thousands of patients now crippled and
in pain because of EPF surgery and the promises of no future pain and an
immediate return to work. That being said, who would the class identify to
blame? Can you blame the inventors of the EPF surgery? Of course but the
truth is that they are very prudent and skilled doctors who use the EPF
surgery as they designed it and obtain generally positive results. Certainly
they should be applauded not blamed. Your individual doctor who caused YOU
the pain? YOU could litigate such a case but to certify a class, you need
common denominators and 1 doc here and another there would not suffice. I
honestly believe that there are sufficient common denominators which
patients injured by EPF share and these are readily quantified on the
heelspurs.com website. The rush into surgery, the promises of early
ambulation, the assurances of no pain are but a few. So we can tie the class
members together but against whom? I have filed 7 (not a typo) podiatry
malpractice lawsuits against the same podiatrist in St. Augustine Florida
during the past 3 years. Certainly if all of my clients had the same surgery
or complications, I could form a class vs. this podiatrist. But their cases
are unique for the most part. Who can you blame for opening the floodgates
of malpractice using the EPF surgery in a manner where the pre-operative
surgical criteria are not properly satisfied? If there is a single doctor
who has caused numerous patients injuries from EPF surgery, I will be ready
and willing to evaluate your case. I would ask you, the victims, to think of
a party or parties against whom liability can be litigated. Help me and I
will help you.
Finally, we receive many, many inquiries about complications and injuries
from patients throughout the United States and even internationally. We
litigate cases in many of the 50 United States. If we are unable to respond
to each individual inquiry, accept this apology but we try our best. We
strive to help victims of negligent doctors seek a just and equitable remedy
for the problems caused but regretfully, we cannot accept every case we
review (we receive hundreds of queries and possible cases per month). We
generally try to respond to each and every inquiry within 48 hours and if by
chance we have omitted yours, email us a 2nd time (emails are not infallible
as we all know).
Personally, I wish each of you, victims of likely negligent physicians
performing unnecessary surgery, the very best and we are there to help you
if we can. Send us your case facts and we will attempt to guide you in the
right direction if we can. Find us a class link and you have my assurance
that I will attempt to reign in the terror of EPF surgery.
Best wishes,
Jay S. Grife
Attorney at Law
Doctor of Podiatric Medicine
Master of Arts in Legal History
http://www.footlaw.com
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