Colorado Law Blog

Errant fireworks and mosquito attacks are not the only threats in July. Two months ago, a study by UC San Diego researchers reported a 10 percent increase nationally in medication errors that killed patients during the month of July. This may seem inexplicable but for the fact that July is the traditional start date for new residents. The spike is prominent in counties with teaching hospitals, and is not repeated in any other month. The analysis was based on more than two decades of death certificate information

Continue reading "Did You Survive July?" »

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Even if your doctor is drunk, addicted to drugs or outright incompetent, don't expect the local medical community to blow the whistle. A new survey finds that many American physicians fail to report troubled colleagues to authorities, believing that someone else will take care of it, that nothing will happen if they act or that they could be targeted for retribution, according to a new study headed by the Harvard Medical School.

Continue reading "Docs Do Not Blow Whistle on Colleagues" »

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Earlier this week, Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law two measures in response to recent cases of Colorado hospital employees abusing drugs. The laws require employers to report health care workers under suspicion to the state Department of Health within two weeks and to make information about a case available to the public, including future employers.

Continue reading "Colorado Hospital Employees Under Tighter Oversight" »

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A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concludes that infection mistakes are common at U.S. outpatient surgical centers, where procedures such as colonoscopies take place. The research suggests that millions of patients may be at risk of contagion.

Continue reading "Reasons to Avoid Stand-Alone Surgical Clinics" »

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Improvements in patient safety continue to lag, according to the 2009 National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report issued today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Continue reading "Hospitals Still Pose Risk of Infection" »

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A hospital stay could prove harmful to your health - or even fatal. Some 48,000 patients die annually from pneumonia or blood poisoning picked up in the hospital, according to a recent research study. And hospital-acquired illnesses translated into 2.3 million extra patient days in hospitals, at a cost of $8.1 billion in 2006, according to the study from the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy at Resources for the Future, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Continue reading "Hospitals May Be Hazardous to Your Health" »

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The surgical room nurse who infected at least 18 patients at Rose Medical Center in 2008 and 2009, was sentenced to thirty years in prison yesterday. The judge, in imposing a much stiffer sentence than federal prosecutors had initially agreed to, called the crime "as incomprehensible as it is unconscionable." He said the hospital worker, Kristen D. Parker, had shown "a terrible selfishness."

Continue reading "Hep C Surgical Nurse Sentenced" »

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Last Friday, a federal judge rejected a plea agreement for a former hospital technician and drug user who admitted that she exposed hundreds of patients in her care to hepatitis C. He suggested the recommended 20 yeas was not sufficient punishment.

Continue reading "Plea Rejected in Hep C Infections" »

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Yesterday the nation's biggest health insurers acknowledged funding TV ads designed to kill the health-care overhaul measure, after a published report said the spots were paid for in secret to avoid a public-relations storm. The trade group America's Health Insurance Plans said it put up funds on the behalf of its members. AHIP represents the nation's largest insurers, including Aetna Inc. AHIP acknowledged paying for the ads after a story appeared in the National Journal's online editions late Tuesday.

Continue reading "Big Insurance Advertises Against Health Reform" »

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Children who aren't vaccinated against chickenpox are nine times more likely to get the disease, according to the first study that gauges the risk of refusing the 15-year-old immunization. The study led by Kaiser Permanente Colorado physicians found that about one in 10 unvaccinated children got chickenpox, compared with one in 100 vaccinated children. And the small percentage of vaccinated children who develop the illness usually has a much milder form, researchers said.

Continue reading "Colorado Study Shows Risk of Skipping Vaccine" »

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Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall introduced a plan Thursday to tweak rules for malpractice trials. The plan is an amendment to the health care bill pending in the Senate. The amendment aims to reduce the cost of malpractice trials by streamlining pretrial court procedures. It does not cap jury awards.

Continue reading "Colorado Senator Proposes Med Mal Pilot Program" »

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The pharmaceutical companies that make prescription drugs are looking over your doctor's shoulder to keep track of how many prescriptions for each drug the physician is writing. By obtaining data from pharmacies and health insurers, the drug companies analyze the prescribing habits of thousands of doctors. That information has become a powerful sales and marketing tool for the pharmaceutical industry.

Continue reading "Drug Companies in Mining Business" »

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A Denver District Court judge rebuked the state board of health today for changing rules about medical marijuana without providing adequate notice to patients.

In his ruling, Chief Denver District Court Judge Larry Naves struck down the state board's actions from a meeting earlier this month. At that telephone conference meeting the board repealed the definition of medical-marijuana "caregiver", casting the burgeoning industry into uncertainty ---- all without taking public testimony. Naves also ordered the state to pay the attorneys' fees of medical-marijuana advocates, who filed a motion saying they were wrongly blocked from participating in the hearing.

Continue reading "Colorado Pot Restriction Up In Smoke" »

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Any one wandering why there is urgency in the campaign for health care reform should know that every hour of the status quo costs lives. According to a Harvard Medical School study released last week, nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and cannot get adequate care. Overall, researchers said American adults age 64 and younger who lack health insurance have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those who have coverage.

Continue reading "Uninsured Suffer Death Risk" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Addicted to a powerful painkiller, Kristen Diane Parker admittedly stole fentanyl from empty operating rooms while on the job at Rose Hospital. So, far 3,978 Rose patients and about 1,200 from Audubon Surgery Center in Colorado Springs, where Parker worked after Rose, have been tested.

Parker, who has hepatitis C, allegedly may have infected at least 23 hospital patients in Denver with the incurable liver disease, which is transmitted through contact with blood, by reusing needles in the saline-filled syringes she substituted for the ones containing fentanyl. The number of confirmed hepatitis C cases associated with jailed suspect Kristen Diane Parker continues to rise, with the state health department now reporting 21 preliminary matches. Some 6,000 patients are being tested in Colorado, plus several thousand more from a suburban New York City medical facility where Parker formerly worked. A Texas medical facility is waiting to determine when Parker contracted hepatitis C before pursing potential testing there.

Continue reading "Hep C Toll Up to 23 Patients" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The political battle over health-care reform has many experts citing research by the Lewin Group, a consulting firm whose research is cited by opponents of a public insurance option.

To Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House Republican whip, it is "the nonpartisan Lewin Group." To Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, it is an "independent research firm." To Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), the second-ranking Republican on the pivotal Finance Committee, it is "well known as one of the most nonpartisan groups in the country."

Continue reading "Insurer-Owned Consulting Firm Often Cited in Health Debate" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yet another employee at a Denver hospital has been arrested for stealing drugs. This latest case involves a registered nurse at St. Anthony Central Hospital who was arrested by Denver Police on July 16th. The nurse has been identified as Jillian Fischer, 43. The Denver District Attorney's office is reviewing the case and is expected to file charges next week.

St. Anthony fired Fischer in mid-June. A spokeswoman for the hospital says she didn't work in the operating room, but the spokeswoman wouldn't say whether any patients were ever in danger. After the recent outbreak of Hepatitis C infections contracted from the Rose surgical technician, anyone who has set foot in a Denver hospital has reason to wonder..

Posted by Linda Chalat at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tragically the first Colorado Springs case of hepatitis C linked to the surgical technician recently arrested has been identified. One person who underwent surgery at the Audubon Surgery Center in Colorado Springs appears to have contracted hepatitis C from surgical technician Kristen Diane Parker, the Colorado Department of Health and Environment reported today.

Continue reading "20 Victims of Hep C Exposure" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Shockingly, a second Denver-area hospital has revealed that surgical patients were possible exposed to hepatitis C as a result of the misconduct of a hospital employee.

Continue reading "Patients Exposed to Hep C at Second Colorado Hospital" »

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Nearly two out of three bankruptcies stem from medical bills, and even people with health insurance face financial disaster if they experience a serious illness, a new study shows.

The study released last week and published online by The American Journal of Medicine, may even underplay the dire reality since the data were collected before the current economic crisis. In 2007, medical problems contributed to 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies. Between 2001 and 2007, the proportion of all bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by about 50 percent.

Continue reading "Medical Bills Cause of Most Bankruptcies" »

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A ruling on Wednesday by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver could pave the way for a Utah couple to reach a settlement in a medical malpractice lawsuit. Robert and Paea Olah allege their daughter suffered brain damage during delivery because of negligence by osteopathic physician Ronald Baird, who denies the allegation and who refuses to grant permission to his insurer to settle the claim out of court.

Continue reading "Med Mal Claim "Right to Settle" an Asset" »

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In 2006, Colorado passed a law requiring hospitals to publicly reveal their infection rates, it was with the expressed purpose to improve surgical hygiene. Consumers have demanded more transparency in health care in part because of stories about a drug-resistant "superbug" -- MRSA, the staph germ found in hospitals across the country. Since 2004, 20 states have passed laws requiring hospitals to report infection data.

Continue reading "Infection Rates for Colorado Hospitals" »

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A bill on Colorado medical malpractice claims that would have eased caps on court damages in lawsuits was gutted Monday by Colorado's House Judiciary Committee, which then approved what was left of the bill in a 7-5 vote. House Bill 1344, sponsored by Rep. Christine Scanlon, D-Dillon, if passed, will make medical malpractice insurers get prior approval from Colorado's insurance commissioner before they can raise premiums by more than 5 percent a year. The commissioner also could set hearings on proposed premium hikes when deemed necessary.

Continue reading "Medical Victims Denied Adequate Compensation" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With only five weeks left in the session, a new bill has been introduced which would allow greater recovery for victims of medical malpractice in Colorado. Under current law, a person suing for malpractice can recover only $300,000 in noneconomic damages. Non-economic damages include "pain and suffering" and disfigurement or physical impairment. All damages in medical malpractice cases, including actual medical costs, are capped at $1 million, though a judge can approve a higher award. The proposed bill would raise the level of the cap on noneconomic damages and provide for an annual inflationary increase.

Continue reading "New Colorado Bill to Help Victims" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dr. Scott S. Reuben, an anesthesiologist in Springfield, Mass., who practiced at Baystate Medical Center, has admitted that he never conducted the clinical trials that he wrote about in 21 journal articles dating from at least 1996. The reliability of dozens more articles he wrote is uncertain, and the common practice -- supported by his studies -- of giving patients aspirin-like drugs and neuropathic pain medicines after surgery instead of narcotics is now being questioned.

Continue reading "Pain Doctor Admits Fraud" »

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Parents of an 18-year-old Ohio man who suffered a brain injury while snowboarding have filed a lawsuit against doctors at a northwestern Pennsylvania hospital alleging that the staff intentionally killed the young man so as to harvest his organs. The lawsuit claims that Hamot Medical Center doctors and a representative of the Center For Organ Recovery and Education caused Gregory Jacobs' death by administering medication and by removing his breathing tube, causing him to suffocate.

Continue reading "Parents' Worst Nightmare" »

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A Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who claims to have turned fat, extricated in liposuction, into biofuel for his car has skipped town after US officials raided his surgery in an investigation into his procedures.

Dr Craig Alan Bittner, who runs the Liposculpture clinic on Rodeo Drive, said that he had created "lipodiesel" with his patients' excess subcutaneous fat. Dr Bittner is under investigation by the California Department of Public Health because it is illegal in the state to use human medical waste to power vehicles.

Continue reading "Beverly Hills Plastic Surgeon Fueled Vehicles with 'Lipodiesel'?" »

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The Food and Drug Administration has earned well-deserved criticism for negligent oversight of the safety of drugs on the U.S. market. Last week, the federal agency launched a new section of its website to try and remedy some of the lapse in information available to the public.

Information on drug safety has been consolidated on the FDA’s website at http://www.fda.gov/cder/drugSafety.htm. Consumers and health professionals can now find information about the FDA's drug safety efforts on the Web.

Continue reading "New Web Resource from FDA" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

HealthGrades, a Colorado group which leads in the field of health-care quality measurement, has just published new rankings for hospitals across the country. Much like the rating of hotels, under the HealthGrades system, medical centers get one, three or five stars based on how many patients develop complications and die after receiving treatment.

Continue reading "Hospitals Rated for Quality" »

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The vast majority of emergency room patients are discharged without understanding the treatment they received or how to care for themselves once they get home. A new study following patients from two Michigan hospitals shows that 78 percent of patients did not understand at least one of four elements of their hospital care. The four elements considered were: their diagnosis, their E.R. treatment, instructions for their at-home care and warning signs of when to return to the hospital.

Continue reading "Dazed and Confused After E.R." »

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Recent pediatric heart transplants performed in Colorado have created disturbing questions about determinations as to when a patient is dead. For decades, determine that a donor’s brain has completely stopped working before harvesting organs for transplant. In the case of at least three infants, each was on life support and showed little brain function, but did not meet the criteria for brain dead.

With their families’ consent, the newborns were taken off ventilators and surgeons in Denver removed their hearts minutes after they stopped beating. The hearts were successfully transplanted, and the babies who received the transplanted hearts survived.

Continue reading "Infant Heart Donors - Heroic or Horrendous?" »

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A jury awarded a Tucson family $6 million in a lawsuit brought after an ailing 81-year-old relative died of a morphine overdose.

Mary Culpepper and two other relatives last month were awarded $2 million each, with the cost to be paid 90 percent by operators of a nursing home, Manor Care Health Services, and 10 percent to be paid by Tucson Medical Center.

Continue reading "Poor Care Kills" »

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Ever wonder about the new doctor with whom you just scheduled an appointment? Or perhaps you are curious about the specialist chosen by another physician or hospital to make a critical review of your records? Now you can find out at least basic information as to a physician’s complaint history. During the 2007 Colorado legislative session, House Bill 1331 was passed, making physicians' criminal and malpractice records available to the public. The bill was signed into law by Governor Ritter on May 24, 2007. The new law appears in the state statutes at C.R.S. §12-36-111.5.

Continue reading "Get to Know Your Doc" »

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By now, most folks have been handed a form at their doctor’s office asking that they sign a statement that the privacy policies of the office and the rights of the patient have been explained to them. This is required by the federal law known as HIPPA, see HIPPA – What It Means To You.

Continue reading "Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied" »

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The Colorado State Senate has given final approval to a bill that would increase the amount juries can award in some medical malpractice suits.

Continue reading "Med Mal Bill Heads to CO House" »

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Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a medical malpractice case, Riegel v. Medtronic, holding that the federal law, Medical Device Amendments, preempts any state laws regarding medical devices where the device manufacturer complied with federal requirements. By now, everyone is aware of how little protection is frequently offered by “federal requirements” when oversight is provided by agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration or the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Now state law can offer no protection against the negligently designed or manufactured medical device so long as federal requirements are satisfied – feel safer?

Continue reading "Safety Not a State Concern?" »

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A Minnesota woman who was declared brain dead last month left the hospital Wednesday after a miraculous recovery. The 65-year-old suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage in January. Life support had been disconnected. Somehow, she regained consciousness as her family began planning her funeral.

Continue reading "Return of the Almost Dead" »

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There is no medical malpractice lawsuit crisis in America, according to analysis released last month by Public Citizen. The new report, “The Great Medical Malpractice Hoax,” dispels oft-repeated myths of dwindling doctors and spiraling insurance premiums used to support limits on the ability of injured patients to seek redress in the courts.

Continue reading "Study Exposes Medical Care Crisis Fairy Tale" »

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A recent development in back care was hailed as a dramatic breakthrough. In a study of nearly 240 patients with lower back pain, the doctors performing the study concluded that the Prodisc, an artificial spinal disk, had worked much better than conventional surgery in which patients’ vertebrae were fused.

“As a surgeon, it is gratifying to see patients recover function more quickly than after fusion and return to their normal activities more easily,” Dr. Jack E. Zigler, a well-known spine specialist and one of the study’s lead researchers, said in a 2006 news release announcing the latest results of the Prodisc clinical trial.

Continue reading "Profits Over Science in Spine Study" »

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When one reflects upon the dangers of surgery, fire is not usually at the top of the list. Operating room fires, though less common than other potential hazards such as wrong-site surgery, have seriously injured and even killed patients. And now data shows that they are more common than previously believed.

Continue reading "Fire in the Hole? No, in the Incision!" »

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Just in time for Halloween, school officials around the country have been scrambling with the prospect of an invasion of bacterial infections. A federal report released last week indicated that the bacteria, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, are responsible for more deaths in the United States each year than AIDS.
MRSA is a strain of staph bacteria that does not respond to penicillin or related antibiotics, though it can be treated with other drugs. The infection can be spread by sharing items, like a towel or a piece of sports equipment that has been used by an infected person, or through skin-to-skin contact with an open wound.

Continue reading "Invasion at a Local School Near You…" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The proper treatment for appendicitis is surgery, and the time to operation is the most significant predictor of a rupture. A perforated appendix can lead to longer stays in the hospital, increased health care costs and sometimes fatal infection. But the liklihood of receiving the surgery may depend upon your insurance card in your wallet.

Continue reading "Odds of Suffering Burst Appendix Tied to Insurance" »

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The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, the nation’s largest public health system, will voluntarily make public infection and death rates at the eleven hospitals within its system. The city hospitals, which serve 1.3 million patients annually, are far ahead of the industry, health care experts and consumer advocates said. The information on the safety and performance of its hospitals will be posted on a new Web site, which will be accessible to the public on Friday. The new Web site will provide information on statistics such as the rate of deaths after heart attacks and preventable bloodstream infections by hospital.

Continue reading "Hospital Transparency - No, Not the Gown" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As many as 1.2 million hospital patients are infected with dangerous, drug-resistant staph infections each year, almost 10 times more than previous estimates, based on findings from a major new study by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control & Epidemiology (APIC), which is released the report on Monday. The author is Dr. William Jarvis, former acting director of the hospital infections program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And 48,000 to 119,000 hospital patients a year may be dying from methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections, far more than previously thought, the study concludes.

Continue reading "1.2 million hospital patients at risk for staph" »

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Officials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration say they have dramatically boosted inspections of companies that harvest cadaver body parts for transplant, acknowledging weaknesses in government oversight of the multibillion-dollar human tissue industry that last year was rocked by scandal.

The FDA claims the inspections turned up no serious problems. But an internal task force report urges the agency to establish a method for tracking body parts from cadaver to transplant patient as well as other problems, but operators of accredited tissue banks and others familiar with the industry say the report doesn't go far enough to clean up the problem.

Continue reading "FDA Again Comes to Our Rescue" »

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Two years ago, Christian Hageseth logged on to the Internet in Colorado and prescribed anti-depressant drugs to a California teenager with a history of mental illness and alcohol abuse. A few months later, 19-year-old John McKay killed himself in his family home.

Upon learning that Hageseth had treated McKay, and that he didn't have a license in California, state medical investigators urged local prosecutors to charge him with a felony. Last year they did, accusing him of practicing without a California license. The maximum penalty, according to the prosecution, would be three years in state prison and state fines.

Continue reading "Web Prescription Snares Doctor" »

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The non-profit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen last month issued a report ranking Medicaid programs by how well they provide adequate medical services to low-income populations. Fifty-five million, mostly low-income Americans get their health care coverage through their state Medicaid program. The report considers federal mandates in four categories: eligibility, scope of services, quality of care and provider reimbursement.

Continue reading "Report flunks Colorado on Medicaid" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Juries still side with doctors in about half of medical malpractice cases where strong evidence of negligence is presented. This is old news to those of us who handle medical malpractice claims on behalf of patients, but now it is “official” according to a new review of 30 years of medical malpractice jury verdicts.

Continue reading "Study shows juries favor doctors" »

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U.S. hospitals increased the number of “patient safety incidents” by three percent overall from 2003 to 2005, and where you seek treatment may make a huge difference in the outcome. The error gap between the nation's best- and worst-performing hospitals remained wide, a report released Monday found. America's top rated treatment centers had 40 percent lower rates of medical errors than the poorest-performing hospitals, the study showed.

Continue reading "U.S. Hospital Errors Continue Deadly Trend" »

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The Food and Drug Administration took a step many consider long-overdue and proposed new rules yesterday that would make it tougher for scientists with industry ties to offer advice about approving new drugs and medical devices. The FDA said that most scientists with $50,000 or more in stock, consulting fees or other financial links to companies should be barred from making recommendations to the agency about a related product. Scientists with smaller financial interests would be allowed to participate in agency advisory meetings but could not vote.

Continue reading "FDA Conflicts To Be Limited" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier this week The Boston Globe reported on the very sad case of 77-year-old Jean Dwyer. Mrs. Dwyer seemed distressed as she lay in her bed at a Norwell, MA nursing home last fall, but she could not explain to her grown daughter what was wrong due to her dementia. Her daughter attended her bedside daily for a couple of weeks, and was ultimately told that her mother's organs were shutting down and that she was near death.

Continue reading "Home Sweet Home It’s Not" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last Halloween it was New York City funeral homes partaking in clandestine selling of cadaver parts, see Modern Day Body Snatchers – now the former director of the cadaver donor program at the University of California, Los Angeles, along with his modern-day Igor, have been charged with conspiracy and grand theft. Both have been accused of illegally trading body parts that had been donated to the University for Medical Research.

Continue reading "Cadaver Parts Becoming “Growth Industry”?" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Four years ago the Florida Legislature capped certain types of pain and suffering damages in medical malpractice suits, yet Florida doctors still pay the highest malpractice insurance rates in the country. Now, the high premiums for doctors mean ultimatums given to patients - sign away rights to sue over possible medical mistakes or maybe give up your doctor.

Continue reading "Heated Debate Over Lower Caps" »

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We hear daily reports on results from clinical trials for new drugs, and they have a tendency to show positive results - particularly in trials with drug-company funding. A new study appearing on the website of the American Cancer Society, analyzes 140 trials of breast-cancer drugs. In 2003, trials with pharmaceutical-company backing showed positive results in 84% of the studies, compared to just 54 % for trials without industry backing.

Continue reading "Fair Trials for New Drugs?" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Botched plastic surgeries are not uncommon, nor is it uncommon for one to become the basis for a medical malpractice lawsuit. But one patient took the uncommon step of not only suing her plastic surgeon, but creating a website detailing her experience, www.mysurgerynightmare.com.

Continue reading "Plastic Surgeon Pays for “High Profile”" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In his 2006 State of the Union Address, President Bush called on Congress to restrict patient access to the courts, claiming that access to healthcare is threatened because “lawsuits are driving many good doctors out of practice.” But, according to statistics published by the American Medical Association (AMA), the number of practicing physicians is growing faster than the population.

Continue reading "Medical Liability Hoax" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Almost weekly, there is another report of previously unpublicized side effects of a prescription medicine currently being prescribed to American patients. . Most notably, in late 2004, Merck withdrew its arthritis drug, Vioxx, after a study was made public which showed that it doubled the risks of heart attack. About the same time, the Food and Drug Administration announced that antidepressants cause some teenagers to think more about suicide.

Continue reading "FDA Returns to Its Roots" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

According to the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation, an Austin-based watchdog group, some 800,000 companies, government agencies and other organizations can tap into personal medical information almost at will. Pharmaceutical information is mined daily, your prescriptions, are an open book to all sorts of companies that don't have to tell you what they're doing with the information.

Continue reading "Money Paid for Your Medical Data (but not to you!)" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With fewer and fewer public places to light up, don’t you wonder about those poor souls still huddled outside in frigid weather, dragging on a cigarette? Well, if they haven’t kicked the habit yet, Big Tobacco is making it more difficult to do just that, according to a study just released by Harvard.

Continue reading "Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette..." »

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Everyone knows that the hotel industry battles to keep the towels from leaving with the guests. But what about hospitals giving away towels without charge?

Bonnie Valle had surgery for emphysema at the Cleveland Clinic in 1995. Her daughter, Jeanne Clark, claimed that her mother always felt that something was left in her left side during the procedure, that she felt something “move” and complained about the discomfort. Sadly, Mrs. Valle died in 2002 at age 60. She donated her body to the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Rootstown, where a dissection revealed a green surgical cloth the size of a large hand towel in her left lung.

Continue reading "Don’t take the towels home…" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Contrary to the oft repeated mantra that jury verdicts continue to escalate out of control, the nation's largest verdicts to individual plaintiffs have fallen dramatically for the second consecutive year. For the top ten jury verdicts awarded to individual plaintiffs, this past year's total is one third of the total for the previous year, which was half the total of the year before.

Continue reading "Top Ten Verdicts Defy "Run-Away" Label" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 7:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

USA TODAY is promoting a “patient safety page” which is intended to help readers find patient advocacy advice when they suspect medical malpractice has occurred. Experts estimate that medical errors claim about 98,000 Americans a year, more than 250 lives each day.

Continue reading "Public Forum For Medical Mistakes" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Florida recently amended its state constitution to limit attorney fees in medical malpractice cases. The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that attorney fee limits in medical malpractice cases can be waived—as long as lawyers fully inform their clients about the rights they are giving up and plaintiffs show they have done so voluntarily. The Florida Bar Association argued that fee limits interfere with plaintiffs’ right to find counsel of their own choice, and the Court agreed.

Continue reading "Limits on Med Mal Fees Barrier to Justice" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A horrific tale most appropriate for Hallow's Eve - on February 23, 2006 in Brooklyn State Supreme Court, four men were arraigned on a series of charges reading like Robert Louis Stevenson’s saga The Body Snatchers. Prosecutors claimed that the men, who worked for a company called Biomedical Tissue Services, had engaged in a modern form of body-snatching. A ghoulish ring trafficking in bones, tissue and other body parts illicitly harvested from corpses at funeral homes throughout New York City potentially raked in millions of dollars selling tendons and ligaments for surgical replacement and bone for dental implants and orthopedic reconstruction procedures, sources familiar with the investigation said.

Continue reading "Modern Day Body Snatchers" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Caveat emptor that cadaver! A Connecticut Superior Court judge has ruled in favor of a business accused of providing a defective heart valve for transplantation, saying that such human tissue is not a product for the purposes of a product liability claim. The issue of whether to consider processed tissue a product has been addressed by only a handful of opinions—including a California case and a federal court interpreting Utah law and all have held as the Connecticut court did.

Continue reading "....very, very dreadfully nervous" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You always knew it was a little slimy, and what it did to the sailorman was kind of creepy - but who thought it would kill you? Well, spinach won't be your only worry in the produce section if Congress follows through with plans to preempt state laws.

Continue reading "Scary Green Stuff" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Are most medical malpractice lawsuits frivolous? Are sky-rocketing health care costs the result of medical malpractice insurance premiums? Two articles in the May issues of two prestigious periodicals offer contrasting views.

Continue reading "Claims, Errors, and Compensation" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday the Senate once again defeated corporate efforts to limit jury awards in medical malpractice cases, taking the high priority issue, at least for both President Bush and the majority leader, Senator Bill Frist, off the table for this year.

Continue reading "Victory for Medical Malpractice Victims" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In the face of public opposition and other looming issues, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is now planning to bring Medical Malpractice legislation to the floor the week of May 8th, a week later than originally announced.

Continue reading "Medical Malpractice Victims to Lose Rights" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday Katie Couric on the Today Show reported on surgeries on the wrong body parts.  Though short on statistics, the report was a disturbing reminder of how vulnerable we are when we enter a medical facility for a surgical procedure.

Continue reading "Oops In Operating Room" »

Posted by Linda Chalat at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)