• Joan Rivers Surgeon Believed That Anesthesiologists During Endoscopic Procedures Are a Waste of Money

    Four months after Joan Rivers died after going into cardiac arrest during what should have been a simple endoscopic procedure, we are slowly but surely learning bits and pieces about the people who were in that procedure room with her. Dr. Lawrence Cohen was the surgeon on duty and also the medical director at the Yorkville Endoscopy Clinic where Rivers was a patient. In 2012, Cohen wrote an article bemoaning the cost of having an anesthesiologist on duty for simply endoscopic procedures.According to TMZ, which dug up the piece written by Cohen, the good doctor was seemingly more worried about cost-effectiveness than anything else.Cohen writes, "Although we can all agree that [monitored anesthesia care] is a highly effective and safe method of sedation, the question is whether it is worth the extra cost to our health care system."Cohen then answers his question: "The answer is clearly no."Cohen crunches the number in his article, saying the average cost for an anesthesiologist is $400 per procedure, but the risk of death is 1 out of 100,000. Cohen therefore concludes that it costs $40 million to save one life, adding that cost "far exceeds ... an acceptable level of cost-effectiveness."

  • Renuka Reddy Bankulla was the Anesthesiologist Involved in Joan Rivers Botched Procedure

    The series of events leading up to the unexpected and untimely death of Joan Rivers are quite complicated, mainly because the staff at Yorkville Endoscopy Center have worked really hard to keep things as under wraps as possible. We have gotten the distinct impression that Melissa Rivers' legal team has been slowly but surely piecing things together themselves because very few details have been willingly handed over. The media has been all over this from the beginning because it has always seemed like malpractice was involved. Today we've learned that the anesthesiologist in that procedure room with Joan was a woman named Renuka Reddy Bankulla.

  • Melissa Rivers's Biggest Holiday Wish Is for Her Son to Laugh Again

    These last four months have no doubt been at times unbearable for Melissa Rivers and her son Cooper. The untimely death of Joan Rivers in early September has been a devastating blow for the tight-knit family, and while Melissa is starting to step out in public again, that does not mean things are back to normal either for her or Cooper.TMZ caught up with the late comedienne's daughter last week and asked her about her holiday wish, and Melissa said her fondest Christmas wish would be for her son to begin laughing again. While she said she believes 2015 will have great things in store for them, it seems it may be awhile before they are feeling somewhat back to normal.Even if Melissa and Cooper have adjusted to not having Joan as a prominent part of their daily lives, there is still a legal battle ahead. It seems many mistakes were made by the staff of the Yorkville Endoscopy Clinic, from administering too much propofol to Joan to ignoring the fact that her vitals had dropped for an extended period of time, and Melissa has every intention of holding them accountable.

  • Kelly Osbourne Is Furious that Kathy Griffin Is Replacing Joan Rivers on 'Fashion Police'

    Kelly Osbourne was not exactly best friends with Joan Rivers — in fact, the two actually clashed quite a bit — but that does not mean Osbourne did not have respect for her "Fashion Police" costar. In fact, when she found out that Melissa Rivers has handpicked Kathy Griffin to replace Joan on "Fashion Police," Osbourne made her dissatisfaction abundantly clear to everyone within earshot.According to a report by Radar Online, Osbourne also flipped when she found out what Griffin's starting salary on the show will be. Apparently, it is considerably more than what Osbourne started out with, and that is just one more reason for her to be ticked off. It is not like Griffin and Osbourne have ever seen eye to eye anyway, but these issues are only adding fuel to the fire.

  • Melissa Rivers Emerges from Mourning Her Mothers' Death and Appears to Have Had Some Work Done on Her Face

    In the three months since Joan Rivers untimely death, her daughter, Melissa Rivers has barely been seen in public. The 46-year old mother of one was absolutely gutted by the loss of her mother and while she has tried to put one foot in front of the other, her social media accounts reflect the fact that she is still buried in grief. Melissa did step out on Friday to attend the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Awards in Vegas and it was kind of hard to ignore the fact that she looks different.

  • Joan Rivers's Doctors Waited 14 Minutes As Her Vitals Crashed Before Calling 911

    Slowly but surely, as time goes on we are learning more about the simple endoscopic procedure that ultimately resulted in the death of Joan Rivers in September. In late August, the comedienne checked into the Yorkville Endoscopy Clinic in Manhattan to have a simple, routine procedure done. As pieces of the puzzle have been put together, it now seems that not only was Rivers given far too much Propofol to sedate her, but that her doctors continued to scope her even when her vitals dropped to dangerous levels.According to a new report by Page Six, workers at Yorkville waited for 14 whole minutes before calling 911 after she went into shock. Rather than stopping their procedure, Drs. Lawrence Cohen and Gwen Korovin continued to scope Rivers's larynx rather than begin to administer CPR. When they reportedly did begin trying to resuscitate Rivers, they wasted 10 minutes in failed attempts before calling in additional help.All of these little details are no doubt devastating to Rivers's daughter Melissa Rivers. They will also only help to bolster the malpractice lawsuit that she already has hired a bulldog law firm putting together. Rivers may have been in her 80s, but it has become painfully clear that her death was unnecessary at this particular point in time.

  • Melissa Rivers is Hosting Thanksgiving Dinner in Honor of Her Mother in NYC

    Melissa Rivers has been working hard to move on from the untimely death of her beloved mother, Joan Rivers, back in September. We now know that the circumstances surrounding the comedienne's death were likely due to mistakes made by the healthcare professionals that she was trusting, and that Melissa has already hired a bulldog law firm to insist on some level of legal accountability. This is one of Melissa's top priorities right now but she also realizes that life must go on so she's going to celebrate Thanksgiving exactly as Joan would have.

  • New York Health Department Believes Yorkville Clinic Broke Protocol Before Giving Joan Rivers a Double Dose of Propofol to Sedate Her

    It sounds like New York's Department of Health and Human Services has just made Melissa Rivers's malpractice suit a whole lot easier. As we recently told you, Melissa has hired a high-powered Manhattan law firm to represent her on behalf of Joan Rivers's estate. Page Six said Joan checked herself into the Yorkville Endoscopy Clinic Aug. 28 for what was intended to be an exploitative procedure and went into cardiac arrest while sedated with Propofol. According to the agency, the clinic screwed up by not dosing Joan properly.Propofol's dosage is dependent upon a patient's weight and, apparently, Yorkville never bothered to weigh Joan. According to an explosive report by TMZ, a staff member told the New York agency that they made a mistake while inputting the proper dosage into the computer and that Joan was given double the dosage of what is safe for a woman of her size. Not only did they screw up the medication, but the report also alleges that if Joan had been as closely monitored as a patient under Propofol is supposed to be, then staffers would have realized she was starting to die right in front of them! Instead, by the time the two doctors and team of nurses in the room realized what was happening, she was already in full cardiac arrest.

  • Melissa Rivers Hires Powerhouse Law Firm to File Multimillion-Dollar Wrongful Death Suit on Behalf of Joan Rivers Estate

    All of that speculation about Melissa Rivers filing a wrongful death lawsuit has now become reality, as it was announced that Joan Rivers's daughter has retained the Manhattan powerhouse law firm of Gair, Gair, Conason, Steigman, Maloof, Bloom and Rubinowitz. This comes as simply the first step in filing a multimillion-dollar wrongful death suit against the Yorkville Clinic, where Joan's routine endoscopic procedure resulted in a coma the comedienne never came out of. It is possible a formal suit could be filed as early as today in New York City.

  • Melissa Rivers Reportedly Will Sue Yorkville Clinic in Order to Find Out What Actually Caused Joan Rivers's Death

    It has been nearly two months since Joan Rivers walked into the Yorkville Endoscopy Clinic for a routine procedure and never recovered. While the comedienne was 81 at the time of her death, she was thought to be in good shape, making her death an untimely one. Unfortunately, Melissa Rivers opted not to have an autopsy done on her mother, so even after Joan's death was ruled a complication connected to the surgery, that is not actually telling Melissa what really happened to her mother. In order to get to the bottom of things, Melissa has reportedly decided to sue the Yorkville clinic and the doctors who cared for Joan.

  • Joan Rivers Never Autopsied, Circumstances Surrounding Death May Never Be Known Making Malpractice Suit Shaky

    About 6 weeks after Joan Rivers' death we are now hearing that the true cause of the comedienne's passing may never be known. At the time of Rivers' unexpected medical crisis her daughter, Melissa Rivers was reportedly extremely upset and ultimately decided against having an autopsy done on her mother. In the state of New York if foul play is not suspected then the families' wish of no autopsy is honored. In this instance there was no autopsy performed and so pin pointing the exact cause of death may never be possible.

  • Lack of Oxygen to Brain Caused Joan Rivers's Unexpected Death; Malpractice Still Potential Issue

    After weeks of speculation, the cause of Joan Rivers's unexpected death Sept. 4 is finally known: a lack of oxygen to the brain. Rivers had checked herself into the Yorkville Clinic in New York City for an endoscopic procedure Aug. 28 when things went wrong, and malpractice is still a potential issue. Now the New York Chief Medical Examiner's Office has finally announced its findings in a report today.
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