Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice

A new study finds that there can be a significant reduction in the rate of obstetrics adverse events through the use of a multifaceted quality program. The findings of the study have been published in the Journal for Healthcare Quality, and the researchers believe that comprehensive staff training programs can help improve obstetrics outcomes dramatically.

The researchers developed a two-year obstetrics safety program, which they then implemented at the North Shore University Hospital and LIJ Medical Center, NY. All staff members of the obstetrics wing of the hospitals were included in the initiative. They were required to complete a training program that included evidence-based protocols to reduce the incidence of adverse events.
The researchers found that the incidence of some of the most common adverse events that Atlanta medical malpractice lawyers come across, like a return to the operating room after delivery or birth trauma, decreased significantly after the training program was implemented. The decline was more than 50%. Before the training program, the incidence of such adverse outcomes was about 2%. After the training program, the incidence of adverse events was reduced to about .8%. The researchers also found that the staff was able to maintain these positive outcomes over a two-year study period.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) is concerned enough about a series of recent infections at outpatient oncology clinics, to release a set of guidelines for the prevention of these infections.

Cancer patients are at a high risk of infections because of immunosuppression caused not only by the tumor, but also by the chemotherapy. Patients with cancer are in frequent contact with healthcare settings, and with other patients who may suffer from infections. Therefore, these persons are at a high risk of contracting potentially deadly infections. Infections can be debilitating in cancer patients who are in a weakened state, and lack the physical strength to tolerate infections.

According to the CDC, in recent years, the bulk of cancer treatment has shifted to outpatient oncology clinics and cancer centers. As many as 1 million cancer patients every year are treated in these outpatient centers. Unfortunately, while Atlanta medical malpractice lawyers have found a strong focus on reducing the number of hospital-acquired infections, infection risks in outpatient centers have been ignored. In recent years, there have been a number of infection outbreaks at outpatient oncology clinics. These have been the result of poor hygiene, lack of sterile medical equipment, reuse of needles, reuse of single use vials and a host of other factors.
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A new survey of medical clinicians confirms to Atlanta medical malpractice lawyers that diagnostic errors are widespread and contribute to many preventable patient injuries. According to the study, close to half or 47% of the clinicians who were surveyed admitted that they encountered diagnostic errors in their practice at least every month.

Out of these, 64% of the clinicians said that up to 10% of the diagnostic errors they have made has contributed to some form of patient harm. However, the good news is that more than 90% of the clinicians believe that diagnostic errors are preventable. In Georgia, diagnostic errors frequently result in dental malpractice and medical malpractice.

The most frequent conditions in which there were errors in diagnosis included appendicitis, bipolar disorder, pulmonary embolism and myocardial infection. The most frequent misdiagnosis was for various types of cancers. The highest risks of wrong diagnosis among cancers were for breast cancer, colorectal and lung cancer. The most frequent types of diagnostic errors which lead to dental malpractice claims in Georgia are failure to properly read cone beam CT scans and x-rays which show impingement on the inferior alveolar nerve following the placement of a dental implant or after Root Canal Therapy.

According to the study most diagnostic errors are the result of atypical patient presentation, failure to consider other possible diagnoses, inadequate patient history, and insufficient follow-up of test results. Diagnostic errors may also be the result of over testing, medical school training that does not focus on developing problem-solving skills, poorly constructed information technology systems, and low self-confidence among physicians. Certainly, the least of the two evils is over-testing, as this, while it may be an inconvenience at times,  almost never leads to serious injury, unlike misdiagnosis and mis-reading cone beam CT scans and x-rays.
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It’s not the most comforting thought for a patient who is scheduled for a hospital visit. A couple of recent studies indicate that seemingly innocuous items in a hospital, like doctors’ and nurses’ clothing or hospital curtains may be teeming with deadly infection-causing bacteria.

It’s not as if Atlanta medical malpractice lawyers are not aware that surfaces can be contaminated in hospitals. However, you don’t expect your doctor’s or a nurses’ uniforms to be covered with MRSA. Yet a study conducted by researchers in Jerusalem found exactly that. They swabbed these uniforms, and analyzed the samples. They found potentially dangerous infection-causing pathogens on more than 60% of the clothing that they tested. Nurses’ uniforms were found to be much more dangerous, with 65% of the uniforms testing positive for pathogens, compared to 60% of doctors’ scrubs.

The researchers are quick to point out that there may be no need to worry, because there is minimal chance of infection from doctors’ or nurses’ clothing. However, considering the unchecked spread of hospital-acquired infections in the country, hospitals need to be setting stricter standards about staff changing uniforms every day, because this seems to reduce the growth of pathogens.
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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the “CDC”), about one in twenty patients who are hospitalized for treatment, will contract a hospital-acquired infection such as MRSA. In spite of those scary statistics, patients in Georgia still do not have access to the kind of information they need to make a safe choice while choosing a hospital.

Georgia’s laws do not require hospitals to share information about infections in their facilities. Hospitals are only required to notify Georgia’s public health officials about an outbreak of an infectious disease like tuberculosis, but are not required to report infections that occur in patients who have been admitted into the hospital for treatment.

Atlanta medical malpractice lawyers hope that will soon change. The Georgia Department of Public Health has kicked off a program aimed at preventing the kind of hospital-acquired infections that occur in Georgia’s hospitals daily. The hope is that at some point, the system will also allow a statistical record of infections. However, all that is in the future, and currently, patients in Georgia have no way of ascertaining the safety of the hospital they are considering. This is a shame, because we are seeing a large rise in the number of potential clients who have contracted MRSA and other infections due to hospital stays and the resulting negligence of the hospital.
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A study recently published by the New England Journal of Medicine found that 1 in 5 medical malpractice claims results in recoveries. Some of the findings of this study are not surprising, such as: 1 in about 15 doctors are sued each year; that lawsuits on behalf of victims who are children result in higher recoveries; and that specialists are sued more often than general practitioners. On the one hand, these statistics do appear to be more favorable to the plaintiffs than other studies that were conducted prior to this study.

As a medical malpractice lawyer in Georgia, the study puzzles me because it fails to point out that only a fraction of the victims of medical malpractice file lawsuits or make a claim on the doctor’s insurance company. The reason for this is simple: the cost to pursue a medical malpractice claim (i.e., expert witness fees and trial preparation fees) is so high that only the cases with the most egregious facts that result in catastrophic injuries can be brought by attorneys.

While these statistics may be accurate, it should be noted that most medical malpractice cases with merit are resolved favorably–if in the hands of a competent lawyer. These types of studies should not dissuade those who have been seriously injured in Georgia due to medical negligence from having their case reviewed by a competent lawyer who specializes in medical malpractice.

Injured victims of medical malpractice should also be aware of the potential difficulties of finding a competent lawyer to take their case if the injuries from the malpractice are not catastrophic.

It’s estimated that hundreds of thousands of patients a year suffer some type of preventable injury or die while undergoing medical care. For many of these patients or surviving family, a lawsuit is the only hope to recover losses, learn the truth about what happened, and ensure the problem is corrected.

A 2013 Emory University School of Law study found that 95 percent of patients who seek an attorney for harm suffered during medical treatment will be shut out of the legal system, primarily for economic reasons. Most attorneys would not accept a case—even one they might win—if the damages likely were less than $250,000. Due to the high “cost of entry” in the form of expert review fees, and other expenses that must be incurred to investigate every medical malpractice case, this is not surprising.

More than 450 attorneys were surveyed for the Emory study, “Uncovering the Silent Victims of the American Medical Liability System,” which found that three out of four medical malpractice attorneys reject more than 90 percent of the cases they screen.

The reason: Lawyers may have to invest $50,000 or much more in order to pursue a case, and they usually only get paid if they win or settle. The payout is determined largely by economic damages—lost earnings, medical bills, and future costs caused by the injury.  Those who don’t earn big paychecks—including children, the elderly, and stay-at-home-moms—are the least likely to find an attorney, studies show. The inability to find a lawyer is a common refrain.

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A 5-year-old Georgia girl died after being administered a lethal dose of the local anesthesia called lidocaine in June of this year. The girl’s family had taken her to Family Medical Clinic after she broke her arm in an accident. While trying to set her arm, the clinic workers gave the child too much lidocaine and she died.

As an Atlanta personal injury law firm which specializes in medical malpractice, we have seen a recent proliferation of injuries and deaths caused by improper delivery of anesthesia. Many of these injuries are caused by dentists who are causing nerve injuries by using an anesthesia called Septocaine. Our Atlanta Dental Malpractice lawyers are currently representing clients who have been injured in this fashion, either by the dentist severing the lingual or inferior alveolar nerves during the injection or by the nerves being damaged by the anesthesia itself. In either case, the nerve damage is often debilitating and permanent. This results in permanent numbness and pain in the tongue, chin, lips, cheeks, teeth and mouth.

Other type of cases that we see resulting in nerve damage are eye trauma cases, and severe traumatic injuries which stretch many nerves in the body which, if not treated quickly, can result in permanent nerve damage.

According to WebMD, there can be a wide array of symptoms related to nerve damage. Which ones you may have depends on the location and type of nerves that are affected. Damage can occur to nerves in your brain and spinal cord. It can also occur in the peripheral nerves, which are located throughout the rest of your body.

Autonomic nerve damage may produce the following symptoms:

• Inability to sense chest pain, such as angina or heart attack
• Too much, or too little, sweating
• light-headedness
• Dry eyes and mouth
• Constipation
• Bladder dysfunction
• Sexual dysfunction

Damage to motor nerves may produce the following symptoms:

• Weakness
• Muscle atrophy
• Twitching
• Paralysis

Sensory nerve damage may produce the following symptoms:

• Pain
• Sensitivity
• Numbness
• Tingling or prickling
• Burning
• Problems with positional awareness

In some instances, people with nerve damage will have symptoms that indicate damage to two, or even three, different types of nerves. For instance, you might experience weakness and burning of your legs at the same time. Other times, you may experience pain and numbness at the same time.
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It’s not the kind of case that Atlanta medical malpractice lawyers often come across. A Gwinnett County man has filed a lawsuit alleging medical malpractice against his son’s psychiatrist. The case has triggered debate over whether a criminal suspect’s family is eligible for damages in a civil action.

The son, in this case, is mentally ill, and has been accused and charged with allegedly stabbing his mother to death. In 2001, the son, began receiving treatment for a number of conditions, including violent tendencies, from a psychiatrist in Gwinnett County. The treatment seemed to help him, and expert witnesses testified as much during the trial.

In May 2002 however, the defendant in the civil medical malpractice lawsuit allegedly eliminated at least two powerful medications from the patient’s medication program, because he believed that these could be contributing to the development of dangerous symptoms. Soon, the patient’s mental condition began to worsen. He suffered recurrent nightmares, and began hallucinating that the devil was ordering him to do bad things.
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As an experienced Atlanta medical malpractice attorney, I know that there are many different forms of medical malpractice.

The five most common forms of medical malpractice are:
1) Sub-Standard Care: when the medical care received falls below the level of skill, expertise, and care practiced by other physicians in the same or similar community under similar circumstances (e.g. the doctor makes a mistake in surgery).

2) Bad Diagnosis: when a doctor delays or fails to diagnose a condition or disease or treats a patient for a condition or disease he or she does not have. These cases are actionable if the doctor’s mistake has resulted in injury or the progression of a disease beyond that which would have resulted from a timely diagnosis or if the unnecessary treatment or medication has harmed the patient.

3) Bad Treatment: when a doctor correctly diagnoses the patient’s condition but either fails to treat the problem entirely, dismissing the presenting symptoms as temporary or minor, or fails to treat the problem properly (e.g. attempting a less successful novel treatment in place of a more conventional one).

4) Unauthorized Treatment: when a doctor in a non-emergency situation fails to obtain informed consent from the patient or patient’s family member. Virtually all states now require doctors to provide patients with information about their medical conditions, prognosis, treatment choices, and the risks of each treatment option. The information must be in plain language that can be readily understood and sufficient to allow patients to make an informed decision about his or her medical care. A doctor who fails to obtain informed consent may be charged with a civil fine or criminal offense such as “battery,” or may be at risk for a medical malpractice suit. However, for a plaintiff to prevail in a medical malpractice suit, she must be able to show that she would not have opted for the treatment or procedure had she known of the risk that was not disclosed.

5) Breach of Doctor-Patient Confidentiality
If you feel that you have been the victim of medical malpractice and wish to sue, you should know that the doctor who has been negligent may not the only potential defendant. The hospital where the doctor is employed or the private medical partnership to which the doctor belongs may be vicariously liable for the doctor’s negligence.

Unfortunately, you should also know that in medical malpractice cases, the burden on the plaintiff to show that the doctor has behaved negligently is extremely high. This means that not all instances of medical malpractice are actionable, even if the plaintiff’s have suffered serious damages. To find out whether your medical malpractice claim is likely to be successful, contact an experienced Atlanta Medical Malpractice Lawyer.
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Since 1950, the law has protected military medical personnel from lawsuits even when they have committed medical malpractice. The law, commonly referred to as the Feres Doctrine, has been widely viewed as unfair and not sound. This is a view shared by many both inside and outside of the military. As a former Army Military Policeman, I cannot fathom a good reason why this should be the case.

Now, the Feres decision is once again in front of the United States Supreme Court, which has asked lawyers from both sides to supply more information prior to deciding whether to overturn the Feres decision. We find a ray of hope in Justice Scalia’s comment in a similar case that was heard in 1987, “Feres was wrongly decided and heartily deserves the widespread, almost universal criticism it has received.”

The synopsis of the Feres decision is:

The United States is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries to members of the armed forces sustained while on active duty and not on furlough and resulting from the negligence of others in the armed forces.

(a) The Tort Claims Act should be construed to fit, so far as will comport with its words, into the entire statutory system of remedies against the Government to make a workable, consistent, and equitable whole.

(b) One of the purposes of the Act was to transfer from Congress to the courts the burden of examining tort claims against the Government, and Congress was not burdened with private bills on behalf of military and naval personnel, because a comprehensive system of relief had been authorized by statute for them and their dependents.

(c) The Act confers on the district courts broad jurisdiction over “civil actions on claims against the United States, for money damages,” but it remains for the courts to determine whether any claim is recognizable in law.

(d) It does not create new causes of action, but merely accepts for the Government liability under circumstances that would bring private liability into existence.

(e) There is no analogous liability of a “private individual” growing out of “like circumstances” when the relationship of the wronged to the wrongdoers in these cases is considered.

(f) The provision of the Act making “the law of the place where the act or omission occurred” govern any consequent liability is inconsistent with an intention to make the Government liable in the circumstances of these cases, since the relationship of the Government and members of its armed forces is “distinctively federal in character.”

(g) The failure of the Act to provide for any adjustment between the remedy provided therein and other established systems of compensation for injuries or death of those in the armed services is persuasive that the Tort Claims Act was not intended to be applicable in the circumstances of these cases.

(h) Brooks v. United States, is distinguished.

The fundamental problem with the Feres decision is that it extended the prohibition against military personnel for suing the federal government for battle-field injuries to any injuries “incident to military service.” This was not the intent of the law and this is why so many proponents of veteran’s rights are calling for the change.
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