Lawsuit Filed Over Unneeded Stent by Dr. Mark Midei at St. Joseph Med. Ctr.

A Maryland malpractice lawsuit has been filed against Dr. Mark Midei and St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Md. by a patient who is one of several hundred people who were recently notified that they may have received a heart stent that was not necessary.

The lawsuit against Dr. Midei and St. Joseph was filed last week in Baltimore County Circuit Court by Thomas Chaffee and his wife, Sharon. According to the complaint, Dr. Midei implanted to two stents in Thomas Chanffee’s heart, but only one of the stents was actually necessary.

It was reported last week that letters were sent to 369 former patients of Dr. Midei who received a stent implant at St. Joseph Medical Center. The hospital informed the patients that a subsequent review of their cardiac catheterization with stent placement resulted in different findings than they were initially told.

Dr. Mark Midei is the only doctor implicated so far in the investigation, and many former St. Joseph stent patients have discovered that Dr. Midei told them that they had substantial artery blockages, when they really had minimal blockages that did not require stent placement.

Cardiac catheterization procedures with stent placement, which cost about $10,000.00, are designed to keep open significantly blocked arteries. Typically it is only considered necessary for a stent to be implanted when an artery is at least 70% blocked, with anything under 50% considered “insignficant” and treatable without a stent. According to a report in the Baltimore Sun, some patients were exposed to the risks associated with stent placement by Dr. Midei when they had blockages as low as 10%.

Dr. Mark Midei headed up the cardiac catheterization unit at St. Joseph Medical Center in Baltimore County until he was stripped of his position and privileges at the hospital last summer amid a federal investigation involving cardiac stent procedures performed at the Towson, Maryland hospital.

Chaffee’s lawsuit alleges that St. Joseph hospital knew that their doctor was fraudulently or negligently telling patients that they needed the stent procedures that were not medical necessary and failed to take any actions to stop it.

The complaint is believed to be the first of what could be many Dr. Midei stent lawsuits involving St. Joseph Medical Center that are being investigated by lawyers in Maryland.