Posted by chip on March 27, 1999 at 20:12:30:
I got a back injury at work and went to all the comp doctors they sent me to. A micro-disc was recomended and i signed a consent for that surgery. I got to the hospital and was addmited and taken to the OR and knocked out. The doctor left me in the OR for 2 hrs and had arranged for a spinal implant company Rep to come in to the OR room and perform a radical surgery on me without informed consent. The implant used had only been approved for 5 months by the FDA and the doctor was unfamiliar with the implant and procedure, to make a long story short i ended up with Brain damage and a failed surgery leaving me totally disabled, under the Dept of labor law you have to stay with the doctor you got treatment with. It turns out that the implant company was experamenting on me along with training the doctor on a new one of a kind device that was strictly regulated by the FDA. The workers comp can't recover on my 4 law suits so they use the dept of labor law to keep me in the same circle of doctors that did this to me. This way the doctors cover up the malpractice and the comp rep uses this to minimize my claim. The dept of labor needs to address medical malpractice in workers comp, so that a injured worker can go to another state or area and get the medical care he or she needs.