A New Mexico jury has awarded a local woman $9 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit against three doctors who failed to diagnose her heart attack in November 2006. The jury ruled that the three physicians were negligent in their treatment of the woman, who will now likely need a heart transplant to survive. Despite the $9 million verdict, state law caps the damages she is able to collect from each doctor at $600,000.

A New York couple has been awarded $5.5 million by a state court in a lawsuit filed against Lenox Hill Hospital over injuries the woman suffered during childbirth. The couple claimed in their lawsuit that the woman complained of pains during her pregnancy and requested a Cesarean section during labor, but the doctors ignored her. As a result of the natural birth, the woman suffered serious pelvic injuries.

A group of northern New York families have filed a lawsuit against a national dental chain over “unnecessary procedures” performed on children to meet revenue production quotas. The suit claims dentists with the Small Smiles/Access Dentistry dental chain physically restrained young children to perform multiple unnecessary and painful procedures, including root canals, teeth extractions and filings. The suit alleges fraud, malpractice, negligence, battery and breach of fiduciary duty. Small Smiles has been accused of similar practices before, settling for $24 million with the Justice Department in 2010 for fraud.

A Chicago couple has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Ill., over the death of their infant son. The lawsuit claims the infant, who was kept in the hospital after being born 16 weeks premature, was mistakenly given an IV containing “60 times the prescribed dose of sodium chloride.” When no corrective measures were taken, the infant went into cardiac arrest and died. The lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages.

A medical malpractice lawsuit has been filed against a Hampton, Va., doctor who allegedly perforated a woman’s intestine and punctured her bladder during a 2008 hysterectomy. According to the suit, the doctor used improper techniques during the procedure and failed to consult with a colleague who had more surgical experience. The lawsuit is seeking $1.875 million in damages.

A group of Guatemalan nationals have filed a lawsuit against top U.S. public health officials of alleged 1940s experiments in which hundreds of Guatemalans were infected with syphilis to be studied. The suit claims many of the people were infected without their consent in “an unlawful, unethical and tragic regimen of human experimentation.” It is believed that around 700 people were used during the experiments.

A lawsuit is set to be filed against Massachusetts General Hospital and five doctors over the death of a 76-year-old woman last year due to a drug administration error. The woman was admitted to the hospital with an infection in her shoulder but was given far too much blood thinners, the suit said. The blood thinners made it impossible for her blood to clot when she developed an internal bleed, causing her death after 12 hours of hemorrhaging. The suit is seeking unspecified damages.

An Indiana surgeon who was on the run for over five years faces a negligence lawsuit claiming he caused the death of a woman in 2004 after failing to diagnose her with lung cancer. The suit claims the woman went to see the doctor in 2004 with a scratchy throat, received unnecessary surgery and delayed treatment, and died after lung cancer was not treated. The surgeon was captured in Italy in 2009 and faces more than 350 medical malpractice suits.

A lawsuit has been filed by firms in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York against pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck & Co. over alleged side effects of the hair loss drug Propecia that were not advertised. The suit claims the drug can cause “sexual dysfunction and mental impairment” and that Merck failed to adjust its label to warn Americans of these effects. The lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages.

A Montana woman and her four children have been awarded $1.7 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit over the death of her husband in 2005. The lawsuit alleged that a doctor at the Billings Clinic misdiagnosed Gerard Heidt’s heart valve condition and failed to refer him to a specialist. Heidt died one year after seeing the doctor, but the suit claims the death could have been avoided by a heart valve transplant.