IVF Mix-up: Wrong Baby + Bad Communication = Lawsuit

The ol' joke among crisis communication folks is when 60 Minutes shows up, you're about to have a bad day.  For medical folks, you might want to add People Magazine -- that paragon of peer-reviewed articles -- to your "aw, crap" list.  

Now, for the record, I do not have a subscription to People....my wife has the subscription. However, today, my Wall Street Journal did not hit the door step, there was nothing to read over my bowl of cereal, and my bored eyes caught the teaser on the cover of People: "This Isn't Our Child, one couple's IVF Nightmare."  Oh, do tell.....

I quickly flipped past all the celeb pictures (why do intelligent people care about that stuff??) and found a six page horror show.  Daphna and Alexander Cardinale wanted a second child, but had trouble conceiving.  So, they turned to a local fertility doctor who was "awesome" and "was going to oversee everything," and their second and final try with IVF produced a healthy pregnancy.  When the baby was born, however, both parents wondered why the baby didn't show any family resemblance. Nonetheless, the Cardinales welcomed the baby home and life moved forward, until one month after the birth they received a strange call from the fertility center requesting a picture of the baby. The tone and nature of the call made the parents wonder "do they (the clinic) know something we don't know?"  This unease led to an at-home DNA test, which confirmed their worst fears: the baby they had fallen in love with was not their child!

The family quickly engaged a lawyer.  Worries about would they have to give up their child ensued, and would they ever find their own child?  Long story short, the couple who received the Cardinales' embryo was found -- and they had also given birth to a healthy baby girl named "Zoe."  The two couples basically swapped babies but are staying in close contact, including doing the holidays and other special occasions together.  Also, the Cardinales are suing the fertility doc and his clinic.  No word on what Couple #2 is doing.  The physician and fertility clinic refused to provide a comment for the People article.

As I have been told, fertility docs do oversee everything and have a very close and personal relationship with their patients (more so than the average physician-patient relationship). The doctor should have made that call to the parents, asked them to come in for a face-to-face meeting, and been honest.  Having a staff member make a seemingly innocuous request for a bay picture that raised red flags broke any chance for the physician and fertility clinic to remain in a relationship with the Cardinales.  "Why didn't the physician and clinic come clean immediately instead of fishing around for a picture?" is a damming question.  Also, saying "no comment" to People Magazine was another missed opportunity. Obviously, we don't want to litigate the case in the pages of a tabloid, yet a quote could have been provided in the realm of: "We are sorry for this situation and trying to understand what happened.  We are committed to working with the Cardinales and their attorney.  We ask you to keep their family and our staff in your prayers during this difficult time."  We have counseled this type of communication numerous times throughout the years, and some organizations have come around while others still need to learn.

The titillation of People Magazine aside, these type of medical errors still happen all too frequently across American healthcare: the lab result that is not reported to the patient with life-changing or life-ending consequences; mixed up charts (my brother's story); dosing errors; and the list of seemingly simple system errors that boggle the mind goes on and on.  There is only one way to approach these scenarios: Quickly run to the problem with empathy and a promise to conduct an honest review, live by your words going forward, and own whatever needs to be owned. Any other approach will immediately void the relationship and guarantee litigation. You cannot dance around tragedies.  

Sorry Works! has a long track record of helping a variety of health organizations embrace disclosure and apology.  Give us a call at 618-559-8168 or e-mail doug@sorryworks.net to see how we can help you.

Sincerely,

- Doug

Doug Wojcieszak, Founder and President
Sorry Works!
618-559-8168 (direct dial) 
doug@sorryworks.net