Medical Malpractice

• "Liability Crisis" Survey fares well for Indiana

  Christina Cole | January 02, 2007 12:58 PM | 0 CommentsBloomington, IN

  The American Medical Association says that Indiana is relatively doctor-friendly in comparison when it comes to state laws that govern malpractice suits and medical liability.The AMA says the Hoosier state is among eight other states in "stable" condition in what it describes as the country in a "medical liability crisis."The survey claims excessive malpractice awards are forcing doctors out of...

• Court Records Being Opened in King County

  Ryan Nute | January 01, 2007 12:57 PM | 0 CommentsTacoma, WA

  As you may know from Sunday's Seattle Times article, a "new day" has dawned in the King County Superior Court system. Now litigants will find it much more challenging to seal their court records without due regard for the public's interest in access to such records.The Seattle Times hired the local firm Davis Wright Tremaine to challenge orders in several cases closing off court records to...

• Office Manager Dropped from Malpractice Lawsuit

  Christina Cole | December 31, 2006 10:39 PM | 0 CommentsCherry Hill, NJ

  On Monday, the office manager of a former Roanoke pain specialist, Cecil Knox, was dropped from a civil lawsuit.Beverly Gale Boone was named with Knox and Southwest Virginia Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in a $1.5M medical malpractice suit filed in Roanoke County back in 2004. The lawsuit was filed by Tammy Walton, whose late brother, Tracy Akers, was a patient of Knox.Akers, a...

• Brain Surgery Malpractice Case Awarded $16 Million

  Christina Cole | December 30, 2006 8:48 PM | 0 CommentsEverett, WA

  A Miami-Dade jury has awarded a woman $16 million in a medical malpractice suit that alleges complications from an unnecessary operation left her with brain damage.Lourdes Landis, 48, of Miami, suffered from a seizure in 2001 after being discharged from the hospital after brain surgery to remove a benign tumor. Landis lapsed into a coma and suffered brain damage from lack of oxygen. Her...

• Medication error kills cancer patient

  Barry Doyle | December 30, 2006 11:00 AM | 0 CommentsCook County, IL

  A cancer patient died after being given 10 times the dose of chemotherapy medication ordered by his doctor. The patient was to receive 50 mg of the medication ordered by his doctor, but was instead given a 500 mg dose. Four days later, the patient died. There were a number of allegations that the hospital staff tried to cover up the error.Fortunately, the hospital disclosed the error to the...

• Risks of Office-Based Anesthesia

  Ken Margolin | December 28, 2006 6:00 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  The recent case of a young person dying during a wisdom-tooth removal has raised questions over the safe use of anesthesia in office-based surgical procedures. Anesthesia complications or deaths are not limited to office surgery, (such as oral surgery, plastic surgery, etc.), yet in hospital or ambulatory situations there are perhaps more precautions taken, better monitoring and certainly more...

• Oklahoma Supreme Court takes on Tort Reform Lies

  Noble McIntyre | December 28, 2006 1:52 PM | 0 CommentsOklahoma City, OK

  The Oklahoma Supreme Court finally weighed in on tort reform a few weeks ago by addressing the constitutionality of merit letters required under 2003 tort reform. If you do not know, thecourt ruled as unconstitutional a provision of a 2003 tort reform law that required someone suing a medical professional to get an expert in the field, usually a doctor, to say in an affidavit that the lawsuit...

• New Malpractice Database for Washington D.C. Doctors

  Ben Glass | December 28, 2006 10:51 AM | 0 CommentsNorthern Virginia, VA

  The D.C. City Council has passed legislation which will require, as of July 2007, doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers to report "adverse medical events" to a centralized medical malpractice database being created by the City Medical Board. (See the Washington Post article on this development in Washington D.C. medical malpractice law here.) Apparently, doctors will have 60 days to...

• FDA Medication Error Reduction Efforts

  Ken Margolin | December 27, 2006 11:15 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Since 2000 the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has renewed efforts to prevent medication errors and other patient-related safety problems. The HHS formed the Patient Safety Task Force, which is a conglomeration of other agencies united to improve health-care safety, including the FDA and CDC. In 2002, the FDA devoted an entire division to assessing and correcting medication...

• Suits over hernia mesh patch on the rise

  Staff Writer | December 27, 2006 9:33 AM | 0 CommentsColorado Springs, CO

  Earlier this month a law firm out of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, announced that they are filing suit on behalf of their client against Davol, Inc., the manufacturer of Composix Kugel Mesh Patch, which as been used in a number of hernia repair surgeries. The defective medical device has been known to cause serious complications in patients who have undergone hernia surgery in which is was...