Our jury system is in trouble, big trouble, and that’s no small matter. It’s a Constitutional matter. The right to a civil jury trial is enshrined in our Constitution’s Seventh Amendment as part of the Bill of Rights. But that right is under siege, as explained in a recent series…
Lavern Wilkinson was a thirty something year-old single mom with mild chest pain. Being of a cautious nature, she thought to get the chest pain looked into. This eventually brought her to Kings County Hospital in New York City for chest x-ray. The results, she was told, were just perfect.…
Yet another study, reported yesterday in the New York Times, indicates that so called “defensive medicine” — ordering extra tests and performing extra procedures in an attempt to avoid getting sued for malpractice — doesn’t reduce the number of lawsuits. What does drastically reduce medical malpractice claims (besides being a…
Came across a great article in the Observer. Here’s my rambling summary: The insurance industry has convinced more than half the states to pass medical malpractice “tort reform” legislation. Their tactics? Cash-in-fist lobbying plus promises that restricting medical malpractice suits would cause doctors’ insurance premiums to plummet. This would in…
Yes, even convicted criminals have rights. Including the right to bring a New York personal injury or medical malpractice claim. An inmate has a right to competent medical care while under the custody of the prison authorities. If the prison medical team screws up, and causes him harm, he can…
If you wanted to hire a driver to drive you on a long trip, would you want access to an easily searchable website where his and other licensed professional drivers’ traffic convictions and accidents were posted? If your answer is yes, then safety is important to you. And I assume…
Joan Rivers went in to the clinic for a routine throat examination and came out dead. She died after she was anesthetized and her renowned medical team took souvenir “selfies” of themselves posing with her. Meanwhile, the doctors did not notice her vital signs trailing off. Fifteen minutes went by.…
I blogged yesterday about who can, and can’t, sue a Hospital for Ebola malpractice in New York. By “Ebola malpractice” I mean a hospital’s failure to timely diagnose and treat the disease, and to take precautions to avoid its spreading. I determined that in New York the patient and the…
Let’s say you just got back from a holiday in Liberia, where, unbeknownst to you, you caught Ebola. You turn yourself into your local hospital with stomach pain and a fever. You even mention that you just got back from Liberia. Let’s say the hospital ER folks – unsuspecting of…
Sexting during surgery? Ya godda be kidding . . .! I blogged a few weeks ago about doctors who got into trouble for texting or surfing the web while attending to patients, even during surgery. That was incredible enough, but now a Seattle surgeon has been caught, and suspended, for…