THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 1, 1995 TAG: 9504010243
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
A man who lost the use of his penis from a massive infection after implant surgery won a $1 million medical malpractice verdict Thursday against the doctor who performed the operation.
It was the largest possible award: Virginia law limits medical malpractice damages to $1 million.
A Circuit Court jury heard eight days of testimony, then deliberated 3 1/2 hours before ordering Dr. David M. Lustig and his company, Urology of Virginia Beach Ltd., to pay the damages.
The lawsuit accused Lustig of ``a lack of treatment . . . tantamount to an abandonment of his patient'' and performing ``unauthorized, unwarranted, unnecessary and excessive surgical procedures.''
Lustig and his attorney, John A. Heilig, were not at work Friday and could not be reached for comment.
The name of the patient - a 45-year-old married man - is being withheld from the newspaper at the request of his attorney, Thomas J. Harlan Jr.
According to the lawsuit and Harlan, here is what happened:
The patient, a diabetic who suffered from occasional impotence, visited Lustig in June 1993 and asked about shots to cure his impotence. Instead, Lustig advised him to get an implant. In his lawsuit, Harlan claimed this was unnecessary.
Lustig performed the surgery on June 2, 1993, and the patient went home the next day. At his first post-operative visit, six days after surgery, the patient complained of pain, so the doctor gave him an antibiotic.
A week later, the man was still in pain, so Lustig renewed his antibiotic and gave him pain medication, but did not examine him. Nine days later, the man was still in pain, so Lustig sent him to the hospital for an intravenous dose of another antibiotic, plus antibiotic shots at home. The next day, the patient, still in pain, got another pain-killer.
Finally, 3 1/2 weeks after the initial surgery, the patient went to Virginia Beach General Hospital with high fever and a severe infection in his penis. The implant was removed, but by then, Harlan said, the man had lost all use of his penis. He can only urinate into a cup and cannot get an erection.
The man has since undergone eight more surgeries, but the condition has not been corrected, Harlan said.
The lawsuit says the man was ``severely and permanently injured, deformed and emasculated'' and ``has been prevented from being able to engage in normal copulative behavior for the rest of his life.''
Harlan said Lustig has performed 100 implant surgeries since 1982. It is not known if the doctor will appeal the verdict.
KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT PENIS MEDICAL MALPRACTICE VERDICT by CNB