Medical Malpractice

• Victims of Medical Malpractice Face a Hard Fight

  Ken Margolin | July 11, 2007 11:45 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  This week's Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly newspaper reported a defendant's verdict in a sad case. The plaintiff had suffered a massive stroke leaving him paralyzed on half of his body and with other terrible deficits. The allegation was that the stroke was caused due to mismanagement of lung surgery following pneumonia. The case was tried by an attorney considered to be a very fine plaintiff's...

• Dropped Clues Lead to Medical Malpractice and Patient Death

  Ken Margolin | May 23, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  A doctor can no more afford to ignore clues provided by his patient, than a homicide detective can fail to dust the crime scene for fingerprints. The best internists would undoubtedly make great detectives. When the body provides clues that something is not working properly, the doctor must follow the clues until he diagnoses the cause of the troubling symptom. In fairness to physicians, the...

• Missed Heart Attack Diagnosis

  Ken Margolin | February 23, 2007 5:05 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  For years, we have been hearing of the importance of a prompt trip to the emergency room or a call to "911" if one is suffering from symptoms of potential heart attack. The expectation is that once in the care of physicians, the various tests available to detect heart attacks will be correctly employed and proper treatment administered. It turns out that getting to the emergency room on time may...

• Failure to Diagnose on Time

  Ken Margolin | February 12, 2007 2:50 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Doctors who are named defendants in medical malpractice cases based on failure to make timely diagnoses, often complain that the plaintiff's lawyer had the benefit of hindsight that they lacked. A review of cases of late diagnosis, however, shows that the real culprit was often a lack of curiosity by the physician. The best doctors are medical detectives and like the best detectives, they will...

• Risks of Office-Based Anesthesia

  Ken Margolin | December 28, 2006 6:00 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  The recent case of a young person dying during a wisdom-tooth removal has raised questions over the safe use of anesthesia in office-based surgical procedures. Anesthesia complications or deaths are not limited to office surgery, (such as oral surgery, plastic surgery, etc.), yet in hospital or ambulatory situations there are perhaps more precautions taken, better monitoring and certainly more...

• Medication Error Reduction Efforts Continue

  Ken Margolin | December 08, 2006 1:00 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  The ground breaking book, Medication Errors, edited by Michael R. Cohen, was published in 1999. In November of this year, Medication Errors 2nd Edition, was released. A review the book reveals the nature of some of the still-problematic areas of medication errors, as well as the ongoing efforts of the medical profession to reduce them.Pediatric medication errors continue to be a serious problem....

• Injury During Delivery - Shoulder Dystocia and Brachial Plexus

  Staff Writer | March 23, 2006 3:41 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Mulitple pre-delivery factors may be asessed by your OBYN to determine whether you will have a complicated delivery. The existence of such factors, known as risk factors, may be determined... by the use of ultrasounds.

• Medical Malpractice "Crisis" Ends

  Staff Writer | March 22, 2006 4:51 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Chicago personal injury lawyer Jordan Margolis offers his take on the Americans For Insurance Reform study saying malpractice premiums have stabilized over the past six months and lays into the people who support tort reform, including the Insurance Industry and the media:Shame on each and every cowardly legislator and executive official who voted to deprive the most seriously injured victims...

• Failure to Communicate can be Deadly

  Ken Margolin | July 12, 2007 9:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Imagine a plane crash in which the co-pilot knew of another plane on a collision course, but decided not to tell the pilot, figuring he'd get the information on his own. Imagine a firefighter knowing a roof is about to collapse, but failing to warn his colleagues because he thought his colleagues were highly skilled and the signs of impending collapse were obvious. Unthinkable? Of course. Yet,...

• Caesaren Section Issues

  Ken Margolin | May 21, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA

  Caesaren sections, commonly termed "C-sections," have been around for centuries. There are reports of C-sections being performed as early as the 13th century. Early C-sections were performed to remove babies from the wombs of mothers who had died during childbirth. Modern Caesaren sections, of course, are a great life-saver for mothers as well as babies. As with all advances in medicine,...