A bill currently before an Ohio Senate committee looks to give doctors more protection and patients less. Ohio Senate Bill 129 would take away patients' right to sue for medical errors when they receive emergency medical services under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). This civil immunity bill, if passed, would [...]
Are hospital-acquired infections a major health concern? Answer YES!! Is there enough being done to protect you from infection? Answer NO!! Why are so many adverse events like hospital-acquired infections not being prevented. You go into the hospital for one thing and assume you will be kept safe from harmful bacteria, yet so often infections [...]
Tort reform is unsafe and unconstitutional, yet it seems to be the topic on every politician's agenda. This notion of frivolous lawsuits and juries awarding unjustified verdicts is simply untrue. This topic is popular because big business and insurance companies spend millions of dollars to convince everyone that the system is broken and that attorneys [...]
Medicare's inspector general released a report this week that supports what Cleveland medical malpractice lawyers have said for years: there needs to be better tracking of serious hospital errors. According to the report, "hundreds of serious errors go unrecorded." While hospital inspectors may notice problems, they do not pass this information on to the agencies [...]
In the Information Age, the trend has been towards greater transparency in every aspect of life, except, it seems, medicine. Healthcare providers have long sought to conduct their activities in secret. Now, patients have even greater reason to fear the lack of transparency in their healthcare. The Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocated millions of dollars [...]
Tort Reform Legislation is unsafe, unfair and unnecessary. Limits on what can be awarded for non-economic damages have resulted in insurance companies profiting at the expense of injured patients. Doctors have also been misled by insurance companies to believe that medical malpractice attorneys are to blame for their skyrocketing insurance premiums. Not true! Tort reform [...]
Medical malpractice claims due to negligence in treating a possible heart attack are the subject of significant litigation. Degree of chest pain is not always a good indicator of whether a patient seen in the emergency department of a hospital has experienced a myocardial infarction - a heart attack, or how much damage to the [...]
There are many causes of nursing home malpractice, but one of the common causes is believed to be chronic understaffing at most nursing home and other long-term care facilities. According to a recent federal study, approximately 90 percent of U.S. nursing homes have insufficient staffing levels to provide the necessary care to their residents. Although [...]
What is medical malpractice? This term is frequently misunderstood and misapplied. I have had juries tell me that malpractice = intent. The doctor must have intended to cause harm to be found "guilty of malpractice." NOT TRUE! Medical malpractice = medical negligence. When a healthcare provider fails to meet accepted standards and makes a medical [...]
Informed Consent: Man Sues Doctor for Amputating His Penis Can a doctor decide to remove an organ or limb if he/she feels it will save a patient's life? Can a doctor exceed the authority granted to him in a signed informed consent and perform a different or more invasive procedure than the operation that the patient [...]