Blog

On behalf of William Cirignani of Cirignani Heller & Harman, LLP on Tuesday, December 14, 2010. With media outlets filled with stories about Medicare fraud and improper medical procedures, the tale of a Baltimore physician who implanted a record number of stents in patients (many of which were unnecessary) is not out of place. Baltimore […]
Medical Malpractice

How the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Uses Lawsuits to Keep Consumers Out of Court According to Justice.org, run by the American Association for Justice (AAJ), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce restricts the average American consumer’s ability to file suit when injured by defective products, fraudulent services or dangers at work. Perhaps a bit ironically, the […]
Medical Malpractice + Patient Safety

Doctors Given 5-Year Deadline to Make All Records Electronic As part of the 2009 federal stimulus bill, funding was set aside to incentivize hospitals and doctors to buy expensive computerized record systems. By making all medical records digital, the goal is two-fold: to increase patient safety by reducing possible hospital mistakes and to lower health […]
Medical Error + Medical Malpractice

A recent survey by the American Medical Association (AMA) indicates that for every 100 doctors in the United States, there are 95 malpractice suits are filed. The defining factors in which doctors are sued seem to relate to gender, age, and specialty. A Look at the Statistics Roughly 5,000 doctors were polled by the AMA. […]
Medical Error

Historically, choosing a doctor was easy: you just asked a friend or family member for a referral. And, if you needed a specialist, you asked your doctor. But times are changing. Due to the growth and availability of information on the Web, many health plans now put physician information online along with doctors’ ratings to […]
Patient Safety

In an increasingly mobile society, getting and transferring medical records has become a commonplace need. Public Citizen Health Research Group, www.citizen.org/hrg, correctly points out these facts about medical records: You are entitled to your own medical records, though you usually have to put the request in writing and probably pay copy charges (Be aware, that […]
Medical Malpractice Reform

We are frequently asked to review cases where a family suspects that their loved one may have died from a negligent overdose of painkillers (opioid narcotics, oxycodone, etc). In analyzing whether there was negligence we have to look at two things: the patient’s response to drugs, and the doctor’s response to the patient. Let me […]
Medical Error + Medications and Overdose

In the news on reform of the civil justice system, consumers–and their lawyers–are always depicted as the enemy, creators of all manner of ill: expensive products and loss of doctors chief amongst them. What is often not mentioned, is the good that comes from accountability. Ten years ago some smart lawyers and some brave clients […]
Medical Malpractice Reform

An Illinois state jury found Johnson & Johnson (J&J) must pay $16.6 million to the family of a Chicago-area women who died after using a Duragesic patch. Janice DiCosolo died in February 2004 after wearing a Duragesic patch that delivered a fatal dose of the narcotic fentanyl, the patch’s main ingredient. This was a hard […]
Medical Error + Medications and Overdose + Settlements

In 2007, 40 million prescriptions of fluoroquinolone antibiotics were given to US patients despite the fact that other antibiotics may be more appropriate or even unnecessary. This is no small matter. The FDA has asked (but not required) makers of pill and injectable fluoroquinolone antibiotics to add a black box warning–the most serious type–to their […]
Medical Error + Medications and Overdose

Being injured by medical malpractice is bad when the doctor is an established, well-respected licensed doctor; but it’s tragedy when he’s none of those things. In July of 2006, Jose Veizaga-Mendez, M.D., a general surgeon, voluntarily gave up his license to practice medicine in the State of Massachusetts. According to Massachusetts, Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez gave […]
Medical Malpractice Reform

According to two studies published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, doctors’ hesitation to self-report their errors is not related to fear of law suits. The studies compared the rate of disclosure between Canadian doctors (who get serious protections from law suits) with the disclosure rates of doctors in the United States. The comparison showed […]
Medical Malpractice Reform

(This is a re-print from another topic in this blog — Medical Research) I ask whether political (or cultural) considerations influence scientific research at the scientist level; that is, is the person or group doing the research slanting their data or conclusions to fit a particular personal bias or agenda. Even more specifically I want […]
Birth Injuries + Brain Injuries

We’ve noted before that mis-diagnosis is almost always a product of the failure of doctors to rigorously apply the differential diagnosis method taught in medical school.  A new book offers supporting evidence of our experience.  “How Doctors Think,” by Jerome Groopman, M.D. uses many illustrations to make the point that mistakes come from “thinking” errors, […]
Medical Error + Misdiagnosis

Judge Robert Bork, one of the fathers of the modern judicial conservative movement whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate, is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at […]
Medical Malpractice Reform

A dangerous, drug-resistant staph germ may be infecting as many as 5 percent of hospital and nursing home patients.  According to a survey by Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, at least 300,000 U.S. hospital patients may have the superbug at any given time.  The bug is called: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which is not susceptible […]
Patient Safety

Medicare wants to stop paying for avoidable injuries in hospitals and several major private insurance companies are expected to follow the lead. Denying payment for such injuries (listed below) will raise a red flag for patients, letting them know that at least some of the hospitalization came from hospital error.  The avoidable injuries being targeted […]
Hospital Negligence + Medical Malpractice

The state’s biggest malpractice insurer has posted its biggest profit since the 1980s, increasing pressure on the company to cut rates that have surged in the past five year. http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/mag/article.pl?article_id=27575&post_date=2007-4-14
Medical Malpractice Reform

Nearly three in 10 U.S. mothers are giving birth by Cesarean section and more seem to be choosing a surgical birth even when there’s no clear medical need.  No one knows exactly how many C-sections are purely elective. Some estimates suggest there could be tens of thousands annually, and critics say many of those women […]
Birth Injuries

Bedsores create a ready opportunity for infections that may spread to the surrounding skin, deeper tissue, bone, and the blood. Bedsores are the underlying cause of death of several thousand Americans each year. There are several ways to help prevent bedsores: 1) Use dynamic or static mattresses and added padding; 2) shift positions every so […]
Nursing Home Care