My question involves medical malpractice in the state of: District of Columbia
I have been seriously considering seeking legal action after the care I recieved from a former doctor when I was a student in Washington, DC after being encouraged by many medical professionals, although I haven't had any expert legal advice. I would immensely appreciate any help. This has been a very trying time for me and I have struggled with the decision of whether or not to seek legal representation. I have alot of information that I believe may be pertinent, so this post will be long, but I'll try and include a short version and a long version.
If anyone has advice relating to this legal provision, that would be especially useful: "DC is one of five jurisdictions that still follows an older doctrine called contributory negligence. This doctrine is much more harsh than comparative negligence. With contributory negligence a plaintiff cannot recover if he or she is partially at fault for his or her injuries. This means that if a plaintiff is even 1% at fault for an accident then the plaintiff cannot recover damages from the defendant." https://www.gilmanbedigian.com/washi...lpractice-laws
The essence of my personal injury claim is that my former doctor did not practice according to the standard of care in over-prescribing heavily addictive, dependency causing controlled medications that I should not have been prescribed. The personal injury as I see it is that due to the large dose of sedating and mental faculty dulling medications I was given, I have had to take time off/drop out of college in order to undergo highly supervised medical rehabilitation to get off of the medication, was not able to successfully complete my semester of school due to the effects of the prescriptions, which is non-recoupable tuition money, and personally, was in an upwardly mobile career tract with a prestigious internship and was soon to graduate from a selective college before I had to move back home to rehabilitate myself. I also spent thousands of dollars paying the doctor out of pocket because of the frequency he insisted I see him and because he did not accept insurance, costing $175 per visit. I believe my physician acted negligently in not seeking enough information before treating me and may have been part of a pattern I observed of overprescribing addictive medications to many patients.
The story of what happened to me, I'll try and summarize as quickly as possible. For background, during high school I became addicted to opiates and began medication assisted therapy, and I have been stable on that maintenance medication since my senior year of high school. My life has largely not been impacted by that medication and have been able to be successful overall and function highly with my mental functioning intact, unlike after the new prescriptions I was instructed to take. When I moved to Washington, D.C. in 2016 after transferring to a new university, I needed a new doctor for the medication maintenance, which is why I was seeing this doctor. The care I received initially was fine.
A few months into seeing the doctor, I told him that I regrettably had started taking an unregulated pharmaceutical from another country, which has not been legally scheduled or FDA regulated, although a few states have banned it. I told him, due to my past addictive tendencies, that I was worried that this new medication I was taking illicitly could lead to dependency problems. Medically, the medication mimics the effects of Benzodiazepines like Xanax, but is not chemically a Benzodiazepine. I had never before taken a benzodiazepine. At this point, I was not addicted or dependent on the illicit pharmaceutical, but planned to stop taking it and brought it up to my doctor in order to maintain honesty and because I expressed concern that I wasn't sure if it would be difficult to get off of. I did not plan on seeking treatment for this, but simply wanted to make him aware of all relevant info in order to receive the best care.
Immediately, he expressed concern and looked up the medication on the internet, and since there is no info from reputable English language sources, he used information written by users of the drug on drug forums and Reddit in order to find a comparable dose of Benzodiazepines (which again, it is not a Benzo, but acts chemically similar). Using a guide written in a drug forum from someone using Valium to get off of the drug, he immediately prescribed me 30 mgs of Valium and 6 mgs of Clonazepam. I had never before taken a benzodiazepine (Benzodiazepine-naive). I was highly skeptical and nervous because I knew these were addictive drugs and it seemed like a very high dose. I asked if the pharmacy would even fill these prescriptions and if it was safe and he assured me that he had patients taking 3 times what he had prescribed me. He instructed me to NOT discontinue taking the illicit medication, but to ADD the new prescription Benzodiazepines and that eventually, he would instruct me on tapering the NEW addictive Benzodiazepines, Valium and Klonopin. I was nervous to take the prescription, so I did not take the full dose the first few days out of concern for overdose, and one doctor commented that they are surprised I didn't die from an overdose because of how high the dose was. Over time, I couldn't wake up without sometimes 12 hours of sleep, slept through alarms to the point that I missed almost all of my morning classes, and developed serious memory and cognitive impairment, which is where I believe personal injury is involved.
He never once confirmed that I was taking the illicit pharmaceutical; he never asked to see the medication or drug test me, and he directed me to continue purchasing the drug from an unlicensed "Research Drug" manufacturer on the internet, with no way of knowing what was in the pills or how much of it was in it. When I told him I couldn't afford to purchase any more of the drug after one "Research Drug" manufacturer went out of business, he used his computer to search for ways to purchase the drug and even offered to purchase it himself and have it delivered to his office. I declined, but he told me to purchase a liquid solution of the drug to measure a dose more accurately. He then took me to the pharmacy downstairs to have the pharmacist give me hypodermic syringes and told me "Just don't use them as needles, that could get me in trouble." The pharmacist seemed to think this was odd, but it was a local family pharmacy that said they had known him for 40 years.
The only harm reduction or seeking of medical information he did was to call poison control to ask about the foreign pharmaceutical a few months into treating me, and he continued despite them having very little information, certainly none saying it was safe.
As I became unknowingly dependent, he added more prescriptions and more drugs. Medically, even according to the taper schedule he printed from online, a patient should ideally only be on one benzodiazepine, especially if they are tapering. Instead of instructing me to move down on dosages, he increased the doses of Klonopin and even added the very sedating, short-acting Benzodiazepine Ativan at a high dose. My current doctor could not believe I was on all three of those medications and immediately had me take only one benzodiazepine, as indicated in the medical schedule.
To speak to the subjective experience I had with the Doctor: He did not accept insurance and I had to pay out of pocket. My parents and I decided it would be worth paying out of pocket initially because it was hard to find a doctor in DC and it was meant to only be once a month. After putting me on the Benzodizepines, he said I would be needing to come to see him at least once a week, often twice. It was $175 dollars per visit.
His behavior often seemed erratic and odd, for example, he frequently called me at all hours of the day and night, and frequently called in prescriptions past 11 PM. The pharmacist at the Walgreens said he frequently calls in prescriptions very late at night, and she expressed concern after seeing these new medications especially considering I was already prescribed an opiate. He also misspelled my name and birth date and never included an address in his prescriptions. The Pharmacist said he once incorrectly called in a prescription for someone who was committing Medicaid fraud, and when she spoke to him, he denied responsibility saying that it was the pharmacists job. She also said "Every pharmacist in DC knows who he is because he calls in so late with huge numbers of prescriptions for controlled substances." She even quietly wrote down the names of 3 other doctors who she indirectly said would be safer and I should switch to one of them. He also once wrote a prescription for a strong anti-psychotic that my current doctor said not only was that medication not fit for me, but that it could cause serious side effects. with my birth date written as _/_/69 instead of _/_/96. This may be relevant in showing my concern that he was not operating at full mental capacity or being negligent.
I began becoming concerned that he was purposefully giving me dependency causing medication that required I come in and pay out of pocket very frequently after he became irate multiple times, first when I asked if I could pay my bill after the end of that month because of how high my credit card bill was going to be due to the copays. He said he had "Done alot of pro-bono work for alot of years" and that he's "done doing that without being paid". More seriously, when I said that I was planning on going home for the summer, he said "If you aren't going to see me, you will have to go to the emergency room" or that he may call someone saying I was at risk of suicide, something I have never struggled with or expressed to him. When I asked about going to see another doctor at home in Chicago, he said "No other doctor is going to be understanding of your circumstances like I am and no one is going to write these prescriptions." He told me that if I didn't fly from Chicago to DC more than once a month, he wouldn't write me a prescription to keep me out of withdrawal until I could see a new doctor. I also became worried that this may be a pattern of behavior to create patients who were dependent on his care and paying out of pocket after I heard someone crying in his office saying they would lose their job if he was too sick to work from withdrawal, begging for a prescription and saying he could pay him at the end of the week. The doctor declined. I also noticed a closet in his office was filled with pill bottles. He works alone in his practice and only took notes on his MacBook.
Almost immediately, I became dependent on the Benzodiazepines, which is to say that I had serious side effects if I didn't take them, prone to lethal withdrawal side effects like seizures, of which I did have one at home. Generally, it is not recommended for a patient on an opiate to ever be given another sedating, CNS-depressant medication, specifically benzodiazepines. These medications are not indicated for long term use in general. "Long-term use of benzodiazepines can give rise to many unwanted effects, including poor memory and cognition, emotional blunting, depression, increasing anxiety, physical symptoms and dependence." The new prescriptions were intended for me to take them long term over a taper schedule that would take, with no deviations, over 11 months. This schedule is intended for those chronically dependent on high doses of Benzodiazepines. I only became dependent on high doses of the drugs after the doctor instructed me to begin taking them.
Concern shown from other doctors have come from; my sister, who is an Emergency Room physician, my current psychiatrist who has taken over the taper of the Benzodiazepines, which I still have not been able to get off of completely, my sleep doctor and the doctor I see for the opiate maintenance medication therapy. While another doctor is hesitant to declare something malpractice without having all the information, what they did say is that it is not the standard of care to start a patient who is Benzodiazepine-naive, (never having taken them) extremely high doses of the drugs, and adding higher doses without ever moving down. They all encouraged me to contact an attorney.
Ultimately, I am not sure if my case would qualify as malpractice because DC has different malpractice laws relating to fault on the behalf of the patient, where most states have less harsh laws, DC as I understand it, says that if I could be found even partially liable for contributing to the malpractice, there may be no case. In my case, I wonder if because I had been briefly taking the illicit "research drug" - which is originally why the Doctor prescribed the addictive Benzodiazepines. Or, is it possible that since it is widely known that these are addictive medications, that I should have known to seek another opinion if I wasn't satisfied with my care? I do believe that the prescription of addictive medications at such a high dose, was not the standard of care.
Thank you so much for reading. This has been a very tough ordeal and a tough decision on whether or not to pursue a case, and I really appreciate any advice.
I have been seriously considering seeking legal action after the care I recieved from a former doctor when I was a student in Washington, DC after being encouraged by many medical professionals, although I haven't had any expert legal advice. I would immensely appreciate any help. This has been a very trying time for me and I have struggled with the decision of whether or not to seek legal representation. I have alot of information that I believe may be pertinent, so this post will be long, but I'll try and include a short version and a long version.
If anyone has advice relating to this legal provision, that would be especially useful: "DC is one of five jurisdictions that still follows an older doctrine called contributory negligence. This doctrine is much more harsh than comparative negligence. With contributory negligence a plaintiff cannot recover if he or she is partially at fault for his or her injuries. This means that if a plaintiff is even 1% at fault for an accident then the plaintiff cannot recover damages from the defendant." https://www.gilmanbedigian.com/washi...lpractice-laws
The essence of my personal injury claim is that my former doctor did not practice according to the standard of care in over-prescribing heavily addictive, dependency causing controlled medications that I should not have been prescribed. The personal injury as I see it is that due to the large dose of sedating and mental faculty dulling medications I was given, I have had to take time off/drop out of college in order to undergo highly supervised medical rehabilitation to get off of the medication, was not able to successfully complete my semester of school due to the effects of the prescriptions, which is non-recoupable tuition money, and personally, was in an upwardly mobile career tract with a prestigious internship and was soon to graduate from a selective college before I had to move back home to rehabilitate myself. I also spent thousands of dollars paying the doctor out of pocket because of the frequency he insisted I see him and because he did not accept insurance, costing $175 per visit. I believe my physician acted negligently in not seeking enough information before treating me and may have been part of a pattern I observed of overprescribing addictive medications to many patients.
The story of what happened to me, I'll try and summarize as quickly as possible. For background, during high school I became addicted to opiates and began medication assisted therapy, and I have been stable on that maintenance medication since my senior year of high school. My life has largely not been impacted by that medication and have been able to be successful overall and function highly with my mental functioning intact, unlike after the new prescriptions I was instructed to take. When I moved to Washington, D.C. in 2016 after transferring to a new university, I needed a new doctor for the medication maintenance, which is why I was seeing this doctor. The care I received initially was fine.
A few months into seeing the doctor, I told him that I regrettably had started taking an unregulated pharmaceutical from another country, which has not been legally scheduled or FDA regulated, although a few states have banned it. I told him, due to my past addictive tendencies, that I was worried that this new medication I was taking illicitly could lead to dependency problems. Medically, the medication mimics the effects of Benzodiazepines like Xanax, but is not chemically a Benzodiazepine. I had never before taken a benzodiazepine. At this point, I was not addicted or dependent on the illicit pharmaceutical, but planned to stop taking it and brought it up to my doctor in order to maintain honesty and because I expressed concern that I wasn't sure if it would be difficult to get off of. I did not plan on seeking treatment for this, but simply wanted to make him aware of all relevant info in order to receive the best care.
Immediately, he expressed concern and looked up the medication on the internet, and since there is no info from reputable English language sources, he used information written by users of the drug on drug forums and Reddit in order to find a comparable dose of Benzodiazepines (which again, it is not a Benzo, but acts chemically similar). Using a guide written in a drug forum from someone using Valium to get off of the drug, he immediately prescribed me 30 mgs of Valium and 6 mgs of Clonazepam. I had never before taken a benzodiazepine (Benzodiazepine-naive). I was highly skeptical and nervous because I knew these were addictive drugs and it seemed like a very high dose. I asked if the pharmacy would even fill these prescriptions and if it was safe and he assured me that he had patients taking 3 times what he had prescribed me. He instructed me to NOT discontinue taking the illicit medication, but to ADD the new prescription Benzodiazepines and that eventually, he would instruct me on tapering the NEW addictive Benzodiazepines, Valium and Klonopin. I was nervous to take the prescription, so I did not take the full dose the first few days out of concern for overdose, and one doctor commented that they are surprised I didn't die from an overdose because of how high the dose was. Over time, I couldn't wake up without sometimes 12 hours of sleep, slept through alarms to the point that I missed almost all of my morning classes, and developed serious memory and cognitive impairment, which is where I believe personal injury is involved.
He never once confirmed that I was taking the illicit pharmaceutical; he never asked to see the medication or drug test me, and he directed me to continue purchasing the drug from an unlicensed "Research Drug" manufacturer on the internet, with no way of knowing what was in the pills or how much of it was in it. When I told him I couldn't afford to purchase any more of the drug after one "Research Drug" manufacturer went out of business, he used his computer to search for ways to purchase the drug and even offered to purchase it himself and have it delivered to his office. I declined, but he told me to purchase a liquid solution of the drug to measure a dose more accurately. He then took me to the pharmacy downstairs to have the pharmacist give me hypodermic syringes and told me "Just don't use them as needles, that could get me in trouble." The pharmacist seemed to think this was odd, but it was a local family pharmacy that said they had known him for 40 years.
The only harm reduction or seeking of medical information he did was to call poison control to ask about the foreign pharmaceutical a few months into treating me, and he continued despite them having very little information, certainly none saying it was safe.
As I became unknowingly dependent, he added more prescriptions and more drugs. Medically, even according to the taper schedule he printed from online, a patient should ideally only be on one benzodiazepine, especially if they are tapering. Instead of instructing me to move down on dosages, he increased the doses of Klonopin and even added the very sedating, short-acting Benzodiazepine Ativan at a high dose. My current doctor could not believe I was on all three of those medications and immediately had me take only one benzodiazepine, as indicated in the medical schedule.
To speak to the subjective experience I had with the Doctor: He did not accept insurance and I had to pay out of pocket. My parents and I decided it would be worth paying out of pocket initially because it was hard to find a doctor in DC and it was meant to only be once a month. After putting me on the Benzodizepines, he said I would be needing to come to see him at least once a week, often twice. It was $175 dollars per visit.
His behavior often seemed erratic and odd, for example, he frequently called me at all hours of the day and night, and frequently called in prescriptions past 11 PM. The pharmacist at the Walgreens said he frequently calls in prescriptions very late at night, and she expressed concern after seeing these new medications especially considering I was already prescribed an opiate. He also misspelled my name and birth date and never included an address in his prescriptions. The Pharmacist said he once incorrectly called in a prescription for someone who was committing Medicaid fraud, and when she spoke to him, he denied responsibility saying that it was the pharmacists job. She also said "Every pharmacist in DC knows who he is because he calls in so late with huge numbers of prescriptions for controlled substances." She even quietly wrote down the names of 3 other doctors who she indirectly said would be safer and I should switch to one of them. He also once wrote a prescription for a strong anti-psychotic that my current doctor said not only was that medication not fit for me, but that it could cause serious side effects. with my birth date written as _/_/69 instead of _/_/96. This may be relevant in showing my concern that he was not operating at full mental capacity or being negligent.
I began becoming concerned that he was purposefully giving me dependency causing medication that required I come in and pay out of pocket very frequently after he became irate multiple times, first when I asked if I could pay my bill after the end of that month because of how high my credit card bill was going to be due to the copays. He said he had "Done alot of pro-bono work for alot of years" and that he's "done doing that without being paid". More seriously, when I said that I was planning on going home for the summer, he said "If you aren't going to see me, you will have to go to the emergency room" or that he may call someone saying I was at risk of suicide, something I have never struggled with or expressed to him. When I asked about going to see another doctor at home in Chicago, he said "No other doctor is going to be understanding of your circumstances like I am and no one is going to write these prescriptions." He told me that if I didn't fly from Chicago to DC more than once a month, he wouldn't write me a prescription to keep me out of withdrawal until I could see a new doctor. I also became worried that this may be a pattern of behavior to create patients who were dependent on his care and paying out of pocket after I heard someone crying in his office saying they would lose their job if he was too sick to work from withdrawal, begging for a prescription and saying he could pay him at the end of the week. The doctor declined. I also noticed a closet in his office was filled with pill bottles. He works alone in his practice and only took notes on his MacBook.
Almost immediately, I became dependent on the Benzodiazepines, which is to say that I had serious side effects if I didn't take them, prone to lethal withdrawal side effects like seizures, of which I did have one at home. Generally, it is not recommended for a patient on an opiate to ever be given another sedating, CNS-depressant medication, specifically benzodiazepines. These medications are not indicated for long term use in general. "Long-term use of benzodiazepines can give rise to many unwanted effects, including poor memory and cognition, emotional blunting, depression, increasing anxiety, physical symptoms and dependence." The new prescriptions were intended for me to take them long term over a taper schedule that would take, with no deviations, over 11 months. This schedule is intended for those chronically dependent on high doses of Benzodiazepines. I only became dependent on high doses of the drugs after the doctor instructed me to begin taking them.
Concern shown from other doctors have come from; my sister, who is an Emergency Room physician, my current psychiatrist who has taken over the taper of the Benzodiazepines, which I still have not been able to get off of completely, my sleep doctor and the doctor I see for the opiate maintenance medication therapy. While another doctor is hesitant to declare something malpractice without having all the information, what they did say is that it is not the standard of care to start a patient who is Benzodiazepine-naive, (never having taken them) extremely high doses of the drugs, and adding higher doses without ever moving down. They all encouraged me to contact an attorney.
Ultimately, I am not sure if my case would qualify as malpractice because DC has different malpractice laws relating to fault on the behalf of the patient, where most states have less harsh laws, DC as I understand it, says that if I could be found even partially liable for contributing to the malpractice, there may be no case. In my case, I wonder if because I had been briefly taking the illicit "research drug" - which is originally why the Doctor prescribed the addictive Benzodiazepines. Or, is it possible that since it is widely known that these are addictive medications, that I should have known to seek another opinion if I wasn't satisfied with my care? I do believe that the prescription of addictive medications at such a high dose, was not the standard of care.
Thank you so much for reading. This has been a very tough ordeal and a tough decision on whether or not to pursue a case, and I really appreciate any advice.
Medical Malpractice: Injury from Overprescribing Dependency Causing Medications Without Medical Need
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