By Gina Tabonares
Variety News Staff

THE Department of Justice’s attorney general has been summoned to answer the complaint filed by an Air Force wife in connection with an alleged medical malpractice at Andersen Air Force Base medical unit.
The summons was served to U.S. DOJ Attorney General John Ashcroft on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., giving the defendant 60 days to reply to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Guam on March 1 by Maresa L. Anderson, who complained that a practicing physician’s assistant at the Andersen Family Care Clinic at the 36th Medical Group Unit at AAFB improperly handled her medical case.
According to the complaint, Anderson went to the base clinic on Oct. 24, 2005 and sought medical treatment for neck and thoracic pain.
Since her physician, Dr. Palmer, was away for flight surgeon training, she was instead attended by Capt. Kirin L. Madden.
The woman claimed that Madden caused her to suffer from pneumothorax, more commonly known as a collapsed lung, by repeatedly and negligently administering trigger point injections in her back.
Anderson said Madden negligently inserted needles using unnecessary force into her back.
She said the day after the trigger point injections, she returned to the clinic because she was experiencing shortness of breath and tremendous pain.
Anderson was attended to by Madden, who prescribed Percocet and sent her home without having x-rays taken of her chest.