New York Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice has been making national headlines recently after President Barack Obama’s speech on June 15 to the American Medical Association. Much confusion exists as to just how medical malpractice affects health care costs. Interestingly, a 2003 study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimated the direct cost of medical malpractice was only 2 percent of the nation’s healthcare spending.

Medical malpractice law is an important venue of accountability for doctors and other health-care providers. While the vast majority of doctors take the Hippocratic Oath seriously and work with diligence and care, the few that do not can bring substantial damage to a staggering number of patients.

A recent article by Bloomberg shares a frightening fact: many hospitals keep hiring doctors who have been found guilty of malpractice. In fact, the National Practitioner Data Bank, which is meant to keep track of bad doctors, only receives reports from half of the nation’s hospitals. Hospitals are often reticent to report their doctors’ poor practices, as it could reflect badly on their own standard of care.

If hospitals and medical practitioners are not policing themselves, it is up to the legal profession to help bring in some of this missing accountability. Every day, the news is filled with stories of patients who were hurt by procedures and negligence that could have been avoided. In February, for example, the Veterans’ Affairs learned that more than 10,000 patients at three agency hospitals may have been exposed to HIV through the use of non-sterile equipment. And who can forget the incident with Dennis Quaid’s twin babies? In November 2007, the twins almost died after being given an overdose of Heparin due to a mix-up between the children’s and adult’s dosages. It was discovered that the labeling of the two products was similar and easily confused. Prior to this, six babies in Indiana died from a similar overdose.

Medical malpractice law is not only designed to compensate and help the victim who suffered, but also to prevent others from suffering similar fates in the future. Access to quality health care is a need that all of us have, no matter what our age or economic status might be. Trolman, Glaser & Lichtman seeks to provide just such legal help to people in the New York metropolitan area, regardless of background or documentation. It is for this very reason that the firm never charges a fee unless winning a settlement or jury verdict. Access to justice and quality health care are vital rights that should be available to everyone.

Medical malpractice suits are quickly becoming a burden on the American health care industry. Common numbers note that some 150,000 hospital deaths are preventable each year and 73 percent of people who are injured and sue for malpractice receive some form of compensation. But what about those who don’t sue and should? The following is a top five list of people who should have sued for medical malpractice (because some were grotesquely injured, some only slightly) but didn’t.

5. Tara Reid: Tara’s breast implants and liposuction caused a stir when first revealed as most onlookers noted the surgery actually made her breasts and stomach look worse after than before. Tara, lamenting the poorly done work said of the surgery, “I had body contouring, but it all went wrong. My stomach became the most ripply, bulgy thing.”
4. Gary Busey: The problem with Gary Busey’s veneers isn’t that they are poorly done (though they are chunkier and more box-like than they should be). Rather, the veneers seem to have taken a yellow-brown tinge. Because porcelain is translucent, the color of the veneers depends on the concrete used in making them. For his veneers to abruptly change color almost overnight some doctors think there may or may not be something wrong with his new teeth.
3. Versace: A mish-mash of odd jobs performed on Ms. Versace. The work done on her was so extensive that she is barely recognizable from her former self.
2. Pete Burns: Pete Burns is currently suing the doctor who performed his plastic surgery. The Dead or Alive frontman had his lips explode after the doctor over-injected his lips with collagen which caused granulomas (tumors).
1. Jocelyn Weldestein: Ms. Wildestein’s bizarre and excessive plastic surgery requests (she asked to be transformed into a cat to impress her husband) don’t necessarily entitle her to a medical malpractice judgement. However the multiple reconstructive surgeries she has had entitle her to some sort of compensation from the doctor who performed, and charged her for, the initial surgeries

If your plastic surgery has turned out to be a disaster, and you would like to talk to an experienced medical malpractice law firm, please contact us.

A jury in Westchester, New York has awarded a local family $7 million in a medical malpractice suit after a family member was misdiagnosed and died from severe brain damage. The woman even had several times to be correctly diagnosed with the pancreatic inflammation she had and was not.

The White Plains jury returned the verdict against the medical center to Supreme Court Justice Nicholas Colabella after a three-and-a-half-week trial and a day of deliberations. It awarded $3 million to Capwell’s three daughters, ages 7, 9 and 11 at the time of her death, and $4 million to her husband, Scott Capwell.

Livingston said Theresa Capwell was admitted to the medical center on Sept. 18, 2000, with symptoms indicating pancreatitis, an inflammation of the pancreatic gland, but doctors spent two weeks running tests for cancer.

Medical malpractice is a very serious business, but it is refreshing sometimes when someone can have a different, more amusing take on a grave situation. Here’s some of what Salt Lake Tribune’s Robert Kirby had to say on medical malpractice precautions:

True, serious medical mistakes do happen. I heard a rumor that a New York doctor accidentally left a barbecue grill inside a patient. Another doctor transplanted a viable liver into the wrong patient’s head.

Malpractice lawsuits have forced doctors to take unusual measures. Before my wife was wheeled into the operating room at the surgical center, she was given a Magic Marker and told to mark the location of her chemo port with an X.

This seemed rather pointless given that the port was clearly poking out of her chest like a knob on a Japanese stereo. Hell, I could see it, and I failed Boy Scout first aid. On another gurney, a patient waiting to have his knee scoped was asked to write "yes" on the appropriate knee. If anyone there was having a colonoscopy, I’ll bet that was interesting.

Maybe this sort of patient participation cuts down on surgical mistakes. Maybe it just reduces doctors’ liability. I asked the medical staff. They said it was just one more way of making sure everything went according to plan. When I asked if I came back for a vasectomy would I have to draw a smiley face on each of my ovaries, they told me to have a seat in the waiting room.

A Brooklyn, New York woman has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the Brooklyn Hospital Center for a misdiagnoisis that left her a quadruple amputee. Tabitah Mullings went into the hospital with back pain and ended up a day later with both her feet and hands amputated and blind in an eye.

She was examined, given pain killers and sent home. The next day she returned to the hospital and was diagnosed with a sepsis infection that had already blocked circulation to her hands feet, and right eye. Doctors were eventually forced to amputate her hands and feet, and Mullings was blinded in her right eye.

She remains hospitalized, but hopes to return home in the coming weeks. "My goal is to walk out of this hospital, with my hands and my legs, walking out of here before Christmas, so I can spend the holiday with my beautiful children and family," Mullings told reporters on Friday. Her lawyers maintain that she wasn’t properly screened during her initial visit.

Many people believe that medical malpractice causes the spike in health care costs we’ve seen over the last 10 years, while others believe it only accounts for a small portion of heath care issues. The Boston Herald did some interesting surveys on doctors asking them about their “defensive medicine” practices used to avoid medical malpractice:

Last year, the state medical society surveyed 900 physicians, all anesthesiologists, general surgeons, neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, obstetricians and gynecologists and doctors who practice emergency, family and internal medicine.

They were asked about their use of X-rays, CT Scans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, ultrasounds, laboratory testing, specialty referrals and consultations, and hospital admissions. Some 83 percent of the physicians said they practice “defensive medicine.” That group said that 18 percent to 28 percent of the tests, procedures, referrals and consultations they ordered were to protect them if they were sued.

If you have been treated at the Life Care Dialysis Center in New York City, you may be at risk for contracting hepatitis and HIV. The New York State Department of Health recently examined the center and found gross violations of treatment protocol that has already lead to one case of hepatitis C.

The New York State Department of Health conducted an extensive investigation of the Life Care Dialysis Center, located at 221 West 61st Street, New York City, after receiving reports about the possible transmission of hepatitis C at this facility. During the investigation, State Health Department staff identified numerous breaches in appropriate infection control practices, including blood on the treatment chairs and dialysis machines, lack of proper hand hygiene, and inadequate disinfection of equipment. In addition, the investigation found strong evidence that at least one patient contracted hepatitis C after receiving dialysis at the facility.

In response to the above findings, the State Health Department has concluded that patients who received any type of dialysis treatment, even a single treatment, through Life Care Dialysis Center after January 23, 2004, may be at risk for hepatitis C virus and other bloodborne pathogens, including hepatitis B virus and HIV. This risk may also extend to any patient receiving training at Life Care Dialysis Center to perform at-home peritoneal or hemodialysis.

If you are seeking more information, please call the Department of Health at 1-800-278-2965.

Is defensive medicine becoming a real issue in New York state and elsewhere? Doctors across the country are becoming increasingly worried about being sued and therefore are practicing what many are calling “defensive medicine”, meaning they order a myriad of tests that may not even be needed just to rule out issues so that they do not come back down the road, even if that means ordering tests that are unneeded.

Doctors say they are in a difficult position because they want to protect themselves against legal vulnerabilities, and at the same time not over-prescribe expensive medical testing such as MRIs and CAT scans, which insurers monitor for unnecessary usage.

‘Sometimes we end up being in a position where we feel like we have to do things a little more defensively than would be ideal in the best of all possible worlds,’ said

Dr. [Michael] Rosenberg, the president of the Medical Society of the State of New York. ‘Where that comes in is the test that should be ordered every 12 months but is ordered every six months, or the antibiotic [prescribed even though] maybe you’d ideally wait a day and see if it is necessary.

Is there a solution to this problem? Or as our society becomes more and more litigious, will the problem worsen?

A new medical malpractice bill was signed by New York state governor David Patterson recently that allows the Department of Health to make doctors who have been charged with malpractice in the past known to the public. From the blog at Trolman, Glaser and Lichtman:

Prompted in part by Long Island doctor Harvey Finkelstein, who has been charged in the past with 11 malpractice suits, the law will enable the public to make an informed decision when choosing a doctor to ensure the physician has a clean record. Sponsored by state senator Kemp Hannon of Garden City, who is chairman of the Senate health committee, the bill will also allow the Office of Professional Medical Conduct to use any past medical malpractice indiscretions by a doctor to begin misconduct probes.

Is there any avenue of legalities outside of medical malpractice should you need to pursue it? A man in Bangor, Maine has filed a lawsuit against Mayo Regional Hospital not for medical malpractice, but under a labor law.

[Robert] Olszewski claims he went to the hospital’s emergency room twice within 17 hours on Aug. 6, 2007, for pain in his chest, headache and fever and was not given appropriate medical screening. He later went to a Bangor hospital where he was admitted for a mild heart attack.

Attorney Michael J. Waxman of Portland, who is representing Olszewski, said the lawsuit is not a medical malpractice suit, per se, but triggers a federal statute called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. The labor act initially was passed as an anti-dumping statute since hospitals were then turning away people who didn’t have insurance or money, Waxman said Thursday. When someone goes to the emergency room, the hospital must do an appropriate medical screening to determine whether the person is in fact in an emergency condition. If so, the patient cannot be transferred until stabilized, he said.

This is a great situation when it is very helpful to know what your rights are. If you go to an emergency room seeking treatment, you must be treated.