Scottsdale Osborn Medical Center review: Emergency department care

On October 19, 2021 at 9:26 am, my mother, Patricia Wine, 92 yo female, was brought to the Emergency Department by ambulance after a fall at home. She had been complaining that she had lost full vision in her right eye, and the eye was extremely red and painful. As a result of the loss of vision, she lost balance and fell at home, injuring her knee which resulted in a skin tear.

The ER Physician Assistant examined her upon arrival at the ER and evaluated her knee injury, which was acceptable, but did not properly evaluate her eye complaints.

The treatment that was ordered by Christine Sarah Morell, PA, was a CT Head and plain film X-Rays for the fall and there was no treatable injury secondary to the fall, except for dressing the skin tear of the knee.

However, the PA did not fully evaluate the right eye complaints. The PA assumed the eye complaint was from an infection and prescribed Erythromycin ointment. The PA stated she checked "visual acuity" but stated she found no vision in the right eye and passed it off as the Erythromycin ointment in the eye that she had just applied. She never checked the intraocular pressure in the eye.

As a result, when we followed up with Ophthalmology specialist two days later as recommended, the Ophthalmologist found an ophthalmologic emergency secondary to acute angle closure glaucoma with high intraocular pressure. This finding resulted in emergency eye surgery within 3 hours of presenting at the ophthalmologist's office.

It is unknown at this time whether or not my mom will gain full eyesight from this ordeal since the high intralocular pressure caused inflammation to the optic nerve. This situation could have been prevented if the PA had checked the intralocular pressure in the ER which falls on the PA as well as the supervising physician, Christopher K. Marcuizzo, MD, overseeing this case.

Thank you,

Leslie Wine (patient's daughter)

[protected]@yahoo.com

[protected]