Surgical fires occur with some frequency in Ohio hospitals and surgery centers. Surgical fires are common enough that the Joint Commission, an independent, nonprofit organization that sets safety standards and accredits hospitals, published a Sentinel Alert in 2003 titled “Preventing Surgical Fires.” Despite that, in 2012, the FDA published another warning by the same title. [...]
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) cases can be extremely challenging due to the lack of objective testing to prove the existence of common types of brain damage. Brain damage is often microscopic such that it can only be shown by a pathologist on autopsy, particularly in cases of mild TBI. Nonetheless, mild TBI can have a [...]
As an Ohio brain injury lawyer, I routinely review medical journals for information about traumatic brain injury (TBI). Two recent medical journal articles address the damages caused by brain injury. To an attorney, the term “damages” refers to the harms and losses caused by personal injury or wrongful death. Damages include past harms and losses [...]
Ohio medical malpractice lawyers are facing a new obstacle to bringing justice to victims of medical error. Ohio’s recently enacted Apology Statute provides that “any and all statements, affirmations, gestures, or conduct expressing apology, sympathy, commiseration, condolence, compassion, or a general sense of benevolence that are made by a health care provider” to a patient, [...]
Slip and fall cases fall under the general negligence category of premises liability. So, a discussion of personal injury claims involving slips, trips and falls begins with a general discussion of premises liability. Ohio law defines the duty of care owed by a property owner to a person entering their property by the status of [...]
Misdiagnosis is a common type of medical malpractice, but not all misdiagnoses are the result of negligence. To constitute malpractice, the misdiagnosis must result from underassessment, under-testing or misinterpretation of test results that falls below acceptable standards of medical care. I was thinking about misdiagnosis cases as I read the obituary of Lawrence Weed, M.D., [...]
Improper dosing of anticoagulation can result in stroke, pulmonary embolism, bleeding, or death. Despite the great risk, a recent study published by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) shows that underdosing and overdosing of newer blood thinner medications is rampant. The study focused on the use of novel direct acting oral anticoagulants (DOACs), such [...]
If you have ever experienced the horror of a truck accident, you know that the modern passenger car is no match for a goliath semi-tractor trailer that can stand 14 feet tall, carry a load the size of a house and outweigh your vehicle by as much as a factor of 100 to 1. Though [...]
As a birth injury lawyer, I am often asked what is HIE or hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy? HIE occurs when a newborn’s brain is deprived of oxygen for a sufficient period of time during the delivery process to cause death of brain tissue. Unlike other body tissues, brain cells do not regenerate. Once they are damaged, they [...]
I have previously written about misdiagnosis of stroke on this blog. When stroke is not timely diagnosed, the patient misses out on time-sensitive treatments that can preserve brain tissue, such as tPA (a “clot buster” medication) or thromboembolectomy (where a blood clot is removed through a surgical procedure). However, in many circumstances, blood clots that [...]
