I came across this pretty astounding surgical error: a Toledo area nurse tossed out a healthy kidney during a transplant surgery. This kind of error, seemingly unbelievable, raises a number of interesting considerations. The article proclaims that such an error is rare. I take issue with that. Surgical errors are all too common. I [...]
When you last visited your doctor, did you see a pharmaceutical salesperson with a large briefcase sitting in the lobby? Do you know someone that has been injured due to medication errors? Have you ever wondered why? How about the drug salesperson that shows up with a tray of cookies for the medical office staff? [...]
Cerebral Palsy (CP) is often caused by preventable birth injuries. There are various forms and causes of CP. As attorneys that represent newborn infants and their families when brain damage occurs during the birthing process, we are constantly learning about the various types of CP and the causes and manifestations of the condition. The most [...]
A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) acknowledges what advocates for consumers of healthcare have long known: caps on damages in medical malpractice claims do not work. The NEJM article, titled "A Systematic Approach to Containing Healthcare Spending," explains that "[s]trategies to control costs associated with medical malpractice and defensive medicine must be responsible [...]
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published an alert last month related to hospital negligence: multiple reports of tubing misconnections leading to death or serious injury. These tubing misconnections arise in a number of contexts: a feeding luer (a tapered connector) erroneously connected to a tracheostomy tube; an epidural catheter mistakenly connected to an IV line; IV [...]
The Archives of Internal Medicine reports that a simple blood test can accurately rule in or rule out heart attacks in three-quarters of patients with acute chest pain. The test looks for a byproduct of heart attacks, called troponin, that appears in the patient's blood. This test is a promising new addition to the various studies [...]
The New Yorker recently published an article by a Harvard surgeon in which he contended that the Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain provides a model for the future of healthcare. The author touted the efficiency and innovation of the restaurant chain as a way to improve quality and reduce costs. Unfortunately, despite the tenuous analogy between quality dining and quality [...]
Every sports fan knows the thrill of looking forward to a new season, as media coverage heralds the opening of training camp and results from scrimmages. Along with exciting preseason news, every sports fan has also read the sickening news of a promising young athlete unexpectedly dropping dead in the prime of his or her life. Often, the culprit [...]
Medication errors happen all too often, usually due to misfilling mistakes made by a pharmacist, mistakes made at the time of administration by a nurse or inadequate followup by a physician. As horrifying as negligent medication errors are, consider something worse: an intentional medication error. That's exactly what the US Department of Justice found when investigating [...]
One of the primary functions of a hospital is to provide adequate nursing staffing to monitor and treat patients. Both for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals have long attempted to cut costs by understaffing and, thereby overworking, their nursing staff. This cost-cutting (and corner-cutting) practice often has dire consequences for patients. A recent study points out one less-than-obvious consequence [...]