In the year 2000, a nationwide report by the U.S. Institute of Medicine revealed that harm to patients caused by hospital negligence was shockingly common — resulting in up to 98,000 wrongful deaths and over one million injuries every year in the United States. In response, patient safety advocates, hospital accreditation bodies, government agencies, hospitals and […]
When Patty Skolnik’s 22-year-old son Michael was having seizures and his doctor recommended brain surgery, she did everything she could to make sure the surgery would go well. Through Colorado’s doctor-licensing board, she researched the neurosurgeon he had referred and found no negative information — although she didn’t find much information at all. She decided […]
When children have to undergo certain cardiac procedures, they benefit from the use of surgical fluoroscopes, X-ray-like machines that allow the surgeon to see, in real time, a moving image of the patient’s internal organs and structures. Unfortunately, fluoroscopy exposes the patient to significant levels of radiation. A radiation overdose can cause problems ranging from […]
Mason W. was born on February 26, 2005, at Hess Memorial Hospital in Mauston, Alaska. His mother had a normal pregnancy, and everything was expected to go well. It did not. Mason was injured at birth due to the negligence of his delivery team. He now has severe quadriplegic cerebral palsy, which means he has […]
Operating on the wrong organ or body part — or on the wrong person — is a clear case of surgical malpractice. But a recent study of wrong-site and wrong-patient procedures showed an alarming trend: the rate of these “never events” continues to rise despite mandatory safety rules put into place in 2004 called the Universal […]
A two-year FDA investigation into reports of radiation overdoses in patients undergoing computed tomography (CT) brain perfusion scans has found that operator error, not scanner malfunctions, was the cause. Since it initiated the investigation in 2009, the FDA has discovered at least 385 patients exposed to excess radiation during CT brain perfusion scans. After investigating […]
At this year’s annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology, there was an interesting juxtaposition of two recent studies about the prevention of hospital-acquired Clostridium difficile (C. diff) colitis. One study found that a simple but comprehensive infection control plan can significantly reduce the incidence of C. diff colitis in hospital settings. The other […]
A 50-year-old classical pianist from Erie won a substantial jury verdict last week in a medical malpractice lawsuit against Hamot Medical Center. A cancer misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis of an infection ultimately left the man with a debilitating brain injury. The infection spread rapidly and caused substantial damage to large portion of the man’s brain. […]
A West Philadelphia jazz vocalist who experienced electrical-shock sensations during a November 2008 MRI brain exam at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania has now filed suit against the hospital for negligent medical treatment. According to the complaint, she sustained what appeared to be electrical burn wounds and now suffers from short-term memory deficits […]
