CHICAGO, August 26, 2004 – A Cook County Circuit Court jury awarded a record $7.7 million today to a Crestwood resident, Jean Frigo, in a case alleging that a local hospital improperly granted surgical privileges to an allegedly unqualified podiatrist. 

On October 8, 1998, Ms. Frigo, a diabetic with a 30 year career as a critical care nurse, went to Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet for removal of a bunion on her left foot.  Dr. Paul Kirchner, a podiatrist with surgical privileges at Silver Cross Hospital, performed the procedure, known as a bunionectomy, in spite of the fact that Ms. Frigo had a diabetic ulcer present at the site of the bunion.  Diabetic ulcers are a known source of infections, and podiatric standards generally require that an elective surgery such as a bunionectomy be delayed until the ulcer is completely healed. 

During the trial, the jury heard testimony that Dr. Kirchner made an incision near the diabetic ulcer, and placed a screw in Ms. Frigo’s left foot. As a result, the bones in Ms. Frigo’s left foot at the site of the screw became severely infected.  No attempt was made to remove the infected screw until February of 1999 at Silver Cross Hospital, and trial testimony indicated that Dr. Kirchner was unable to remove the screw at that time because of his lack of proper surgical training.

As a consequence of the negligent October, 1998, left foot surgery at Silver Cross Hospital, the bones in Ms. Frigo’s left foot became so infected that she was forced to undergo the amputation of her left foot at Loyola University Medical Center on August 30, 1999.  Ms. Frigo, now 56 years old, is permanently disabled as a result of the amputation, and is unable to return to work as a nurse.

During the case, Ms. Frigo’s attorneys obtained evidence that Silver Cross Hospital granted hospital privileges to Dr. Kirchner in 1992 contrary to the hospital’s own by-laws.  The hospital’s by-laws required all podiatrists seeking surgical privileges at the hospital to have completed either a 12-month podiatric surgical residency program, or be board-certified by the American Board of Podiatric Surgery.  Dr. Kirchner met neither of these requirements in 1992, when he initially began performing procedures at Silver Cross Hospital, or in 1998, when he performed surgery on Ms. Frigo.  During that time period Dr. Kirchner re-applied several times for continuation of his surgical privileges at Silver Cross Hospital, and each time the hospital’s Board of Trustees granted the privileges in violation of its own rules and by-laws.   

Illinois law requires hospitals to use reasonable care to determine the qualifications of health care professionals added to a hospital’s medical staff.  In Ms. Frigo’s case the jury agreed that podiatrist Dr. Kirchner was professionally negligent in performing the surgery and failing to properly treat Ms. Frigo’s foot infection, and that Silver Cross Hospital was negligent in giving hospital privileges to Dr. Kirchner to perform the surgery in the first place.  After a 14-day trial, the jury deliberated for two hours before awarding a record $7,775,668 to Ms. Frigo. 

Ms. Frigo was represented by Christopher T. Hurley and Mark R. McKenna of Hurley McKenna & Mertz, and James E. Pancrantz of Pancratz Law Offices, in Chicago.  Cook County Circuit Court Judge Donald O’Brien presided over the jury trial.