Community Corner

Patient Death Prompts Reprimand of Laguna Hills Doctor

After discharging a patient who died later that day, Dr. Thomas Elgin, who works in Fountain Valley and Laguna Hills, was publicly reprimanded by the state medical board.

He discharged a patient who was suffering from a heart attack, and the man died later that day. Now Dr. Thomas Elgin has a public reprimand on his record issued by the Medical Board of California.

Elgin practices emergency medicine at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills and Orange Coast Memorial in Fountain Valley.

When he was working in the Orange Coast Memorial emergency room Aug. 23, 2006, Elgin treated a 48-year-old man known in public records only as "J.D."

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J.D. went to the hospital and said he had numbness in both his arms, "pinpoint" chest pain and nausea. Nurses said he also complained of jaw tightness and pain in both arms.

According to the board, Elgin interpreted results of an electrocardiogram, often called an EKG, as normal. But during a 2009 interview with the medical board, the doctor recognized that J.D.'s EKG was not normal.

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After two hours at the hospital, Elgin discharged J.D. with a diagnosis of atypical chest pain.

Elgin told the health board in 2009 that J.D. refused to be admitted to the hospital and wanted to go home. The board said Elgin failed to document this refusal.

J.D. died later that day, and an autopsy revealed he died of a heart attack.

In addition to the reprimand, Elgin was required to take a medical record-keeping class, which he attended for two days last July.


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