{"id":1177,"date":"2013-05-11T22:03:06","date_gmt":"2013-05-12T04:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/?p=1177"},"modified":"2013-05-11T22:03:06","modified_gmt":"2013-05-12T04:03:06","slug":"st-louis-neurosurgeon-sued-50-times-for-malpractice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cerebral-palsy-medicalmalpractice.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/st-louis-neurosurgeon-sued-50-times-for-malpractice.html","title":{"rendered":"St. Louis Neurosurgeon Sued 50 Times For Malpractice"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Is Dr. Faisal Albanna a negligent neurosurgeon, or a target for medical malpractice lawsuits, because of the high-risk operations he performed?<\/p>\r\n

That’s the question that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch took on in its profile of Albanna, an Iranian-born doctor who has been named as a defendant in roughly 50 lawsuits since 1987, including four wrongful death cases.<\/p>\r\n

http:\/\/www.stltoday.com\/business\/local\/dozens-of-malpractice-lawsuits-cloud-st-louis-neurosurgeon-s-career\/article_370ce460-99ab-517e-9ac6-494317cb47b0.html<\/a><\/p>\r\n

Right now Albanna, 60, says he is “disabled” and has stopped practicing medicine, the newspaper said. Earlier this year he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection.<\/p>\r\n

In the article, Albanna is credited with being a multimillion-dollar rainmaker for several St. Louis hospitals, in part by taking on difficult brain surgeries that other physicians wouldn’t touch.<\/p>\r\n

The brain surgeon made news in 1998 when he saved a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy who was in a coma after being shot in the forehead with a shotgun, the Post-Dispatch reported. Albanna carefully removed metal fragments from the deputy’s brain and repaired a “leak” in it caused by the metal.<\/p>\r\n

The Post-Dispatch credited Albanna with an apt quote, saying the surgeon once compared fixing a brain aneurysm to “defusing a mine.”<\/p>\r\n

But attorneys who have represented clients in medical malpractice cases against Albanna have a different story, the newspaper reported. They alleged that after surgery by Albanna their clients sustained nerve damage and had chronic pain. In one instance, Albanna performed surgery on a patient who needed a shunt, a tube, removed from his brain that was causing trouble.<\/p>\r\n

That patient died just one day after Albanna did the surgery on him. Several neurosurgeons had refused to perform that surgery on the patient, claiming it was too risky. And a half dozen doctors, according to the Post-Dispatch, signed affidavits alleging that Albanna’s conduct “fell below the standard of care.”<\/p>\r\n

Over the years in Missouri, the state medical board reprimanded Albanna a number of times for his unprofessional conduct. He was placed on probation in not only Missouri but Illinois and Pennsylvania. Yet hospitals continued to renew Albanna’s privileges, the Post-Dispatch reported.<\/p>\r\n

Albanna’s defenders claim that as a surgeon in a high-risk specialty, cases that other doctors refused to take, it makes sense that he has been sued so many times.<\/p>\r\n

But I have to agree with question posed by one attorney quoted in the story: “Why do hospitals let a guy like this on staff?” Indeed.<\/p>\r\n

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Is Dr. Faisal Albanna a negligent neurosurgeon, or a target for medical malpractice lawsuits, because of the high-risk operations he performed? That’s the question that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch took on in its profile of Albanna, an Iranian-born doctor who has been named as a defendant in roughly 50 lawsuits since 1987, including four wrongful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[655,4,657,656,451],"class_list":["post-1177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dr-faisal-albanna","tag-medical-malpractice","tag-neursurgeon","tag-st-louis","tag-traumatic-brain-injury"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t