It would be reasonable to expect that victims of medical malpractice would be motivated by anger or a desire to seek revenge on the guilty. However, in my experience, anger is rarely the emotion that dominates my clients who are victims of medical malpractice. Almost without exception, the emotion that overwhelms my clients is guilt. […]
A recently published study out of Johns Hopkins concluded that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. As I watched the sixty seconds of national coverage dedicated to this revelation it occurred to me- this isn’t really newly discovered information but yet another confirmation of the fact that over […]
Anyone who does medical malpractice litigation has heard the following: “If it’s not documented in the medical record, it was not done.” The omission of critical facts can be a significant finding that supports liability. Although there is really little to prevent a health care provider from testifying that an omitted fact from the record […]
The other day I read an article about a study done by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality that estimated 1.3 million fewer patients were injured or victims of some form of medical malpractice from 2010 to 2013 because of the great focus placed on efforts to reduce surgery site infections, medication issues, and […]
As a patient, you should be able to trust your medical professional. When you are sick, you are vulnerable and you expect your doctor to take time to listen to your symptoms, formulate a plan to figure out what is wrong and to ultimately make a correct diagnosis so you can be treated quickly and […]
When information falls through the cracks, diagnoses are missed, treatment is compromised and patients are harmed. Errors often occur because information is not recorded, misdirected, never received, never retrieved or ignored. For example, when I ask a doctor if they review nurses notes the typical response is sometimes or rarely. I recently had a doctor […]
Anyone who does medical malpractice litigation has heard the following: “If it’s not documented in the medical record, it was not done.” The omission of critical facts can be a significant finding that supports liability. Although there is really little to prevent a health care provider from testifying that an omitted fact from the record […]
Once upon a time. . . we relied upon the medical record to tell us the non-fiction version of what happened to our clients. Then along came electronic medical records and non-fiction is no longer fact. The medical record is supposed to be a systematic documentation of the medical care across a defined period of […]
On June 20, 2017, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in Shinal v. Toms that the duty to obtain informed consent is the physician’s non- delegable duty. The case involved a surgical procedure that resulted in hemorrhage, stroke, brain injury and partial blindness due to perforation of the carotid artery during the surgery. During the trial […]
Many of us never heard of “compartment syndrome” until wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Antonio Brown, was taken to the hospital after a direct blow to his lower leg while trying to make a catch last season. Doctors wanted to make sure Brown didn’t have compartment syndrome, an orthopaedic emergency.
