Medical Malpractice

• Rituxan Deaths

  Ken Margolin | December 19, 2006 12:00 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Biogen Idec, Inc., the manufacturer of the drug, Rituxan, just issued to an alert to doctors, warning that two patients taking Rituxan died of the fatal brain disease, "progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy" (PML). Both patients who died were being treated experimentally with the drug, for lupus. While Rituxan is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, only for treatment of rheumatoid...

• Jury System Still Safe in Massachusetts

  Ken Margolin | April 10, 2007 2:45 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  I got a momentary scare the other day, when I read of a Supreme Judicial Court decision upholding a binding arbitration contract between a nursing home and the son of an elderly parent admitted to the home. Binding arbitration agreements require that if there is a dispute between the parties, resort to the courts and juries is waived in favor of submission to a professional arbitrator. The case...

• Wrong Site Surgeries

  Ken Margolin | August 06, 2007 4:10 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  An article in Saturday's Boston Globe illustrated the gap that sometimes exists between written procedures and implementation. The article also highlighted the ongoing danger from surgeries on the wrong part of a patient's body. Five hundred fifty-two cases of wrong-site surgery have been reported by American hospitals since 1995; there are undoubtedly many unreported cases. The incident covered...

• New Pharmaceutical Worries

  Ken Margolin | December 26, 2006 7:15 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  A British study reported last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reported a significantly higher risk of hip fractures in patients over 50 years of age, taking popular heartburn drugs, such as Nexium, Prevacid, or Prilosec, for more than a year. The drugs, as any television watcher or magazine reader, knows, have been heavily advertised. The drugs that showed the highest...

• A Medical Malpractice Claim Lost

  Ken Margolin | August 21, 2007 3:15 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  A couple of weeks ago, a Suffolk County Superior Court jury in Boston, rejected the claim of former New England Patriots offensive coordinator, Charlie Weis, that doctors botched his gastric bypass surgery. The defense verdict came at the end of the second trial of the case. The first jury hearing the case was deadlocked, leading to a mistrial. Weis had claimed that his surgeons allowed...

• The Power of Exhibits

  Ken Margolin | August 20, 2007 11:15 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  I wonder if anyone has ever calculated the number of words per hour spoken during the average jury trial. The right words, used the right way, can evoke the most powerful of images, associations, and emotions. Words can also drone on and become little more than background noise to the listener. The lawyer trying a case involving catastrophic personal injury, has a challenge. He may need to...

• Massachusetts Personal Injury Update

  Ken Margolin | April 04, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Verdicts and settlements reported in this week's Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly newspaper, show the continued appreciation by jurors, of the terrible impact that severe injuries can have on the victim's enjoyment of life. Obstetrical negligence resulted in permanent neurological injuries to an infant, when the obstetrician failed to go to the hospital in a timely manner to deliver his patient's...

• Don't Let your Rights Slip Away

  Ken Margolin | March 23, 2007 5:40 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Most people have heard the term "statute of limitations," and have a vague idea that it creates some kind of time limit for legal action. Many people do not realize, however, how devastating a statute of limitations can be when it expires and extinguishes the right to pursue a valid lawsuit. Victims of a serious injury, or their family members, often suffer a type of emotional numbness when it...

• Working to Lower Medication Errors - Credit Where it is Due

  Ken Margolin | February 13, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Michael Leonard, MD, is an anesthesiologist who has written on the subject of medication error reduction. Readers who have followed my blogs may know that the anesthesiology profession was a leader amongst physicians and hospital professionals in analyzing the causes of medication errors and other medical mistakes. The doctors who studied the problem, such as Lucien Leape, MD, and others,...

• Altered Medical Records - Evidence of Medical Malpractice

  Ken Margolin | October 18, 2006 5:00 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  In a blog entitled, "When to Call a Lawyer," I touched on the topic of alteration of medical records. In this posting, I will address it in more detail. Accuracy in medical records is essential. They are relied upon by subsequent treating physicians to give an accurate picture of a patient's prior medical history. In those instances when a medical professional must change a record - for example,...