barnes hired to sue weinberger and alleging he misdiagnosed her troubled breathing and gave her a sinus surgery she didn t need while missing the advanced throat cancer that eventually killed her. he needs to understand it wasn t just the insurance companies that were harmed, it was people. lives were destroy. people were hurt. phyllis barnes, it turns out, was just the tip of the iceberg. once mark weinberger fled malpractice complaints began flooding into lawyers like ken allen. among those were kayla thomas and her mother, valerie. in 2003, 8-year-old kayla began having headaches so severe they caused vomiting and extreme sensitivity to light. valerie says she decided to take kayla to dr. weinberger seeing an ad that sinus surgery is a
he deserves to be punished. ken allen, you ll remember, is the lawyer phyllis barnes hired to sue weinberger. in court documents, allen alleges that weinberger misdiagnosed phyllis trouble breathing and gave her a surgery she didn t need while missing the advanced throat cancer that eventually killed her. he needs to understand it wasn t just the insurance companies that were harmed. it was people. lives were destroyed. people were hurt. phyllis barnes, it turns out, was just the tip of the iceberg. once mark weinberger fled, malpractice complaints began flooding in to lawyers like ken allen. among those new clients were kayla thomas and her mother valerie. in 2003, 8-year-old kayla began having headaches so severe they caused vomiting and extreme sensitivity to light. valerie said she decided to take kayla to dr. weinberger after seeing a billboard about sinus surgery to cure headaches. i took her to his office.
he was an excellent physician. what do you think motivated him? his desire to be the best at what he did. in 2000, weinberger began aggressively advertising himself as a sinus specialist. he billed himself as dr. nose and his practice grew rapidly. we could see 40 to 50 patients on an office day. out of those, 10 to 16 would be new patients. how many surgeries was he performing? on an average, within 15 to 22 a week. 15 to 22 surgeries, one man, every week. yes. and you ve worked in this business a long time. i mean, how busy is that compared to your average surgeon? huge. dennington said patients who walked into the clinic with anything from breathing problems to bad headaches were told that his sinus surgeries were an alternative to taking medications every day and had a 95% success rate. his technique was incredible.
i am my daughter s only surviving parent. i want to make sure she goes to school. on september 16, 2004, almost exactly one year after that deposition was recorded, phyllis barnes died, surrounded by her family. as it happened, that was just two days before dr. weinberger and his wife left the united states for the greek islands, the great escape he had been planning for three months was about to begin. and right on his heels, a family and a lawyer seeking justice. he knew, having killed someone, that it was not something he could easily sweep under the rug. it really is evil, and he needs he deserves to be punished. nick was born to move. not necessarily after 3 toddlers with boundless energy. but lower back pain won t stop him from keeping up.
nerdy kid from a wealthy new york suburb who was driven by sibling rivalry to outshine his brothers. mark figured, the way to be the apple of my parents eye is to do well in school. he went to the university of pennsylvania, then went to ucla medical school where he thrived. he could have established his ear nose and throat medical practice anywhere, but in 1996 he chose merrillville, indiana. it was close enough to chicago that he could live there and have chauffeurs drive him to his office every day. but most important, he could count on the air pollution in northwest indiana to provide a steady stream of patients with sinus problems. in northwest indiana where you re breathing in the pollution, you ve got high pollen and extreme changes in temperature, it s not unusual to see a high degree of patients who suffer from sinus problems. suzette dennington, weinberger s top medical assistant worked closely with him day in and day out.