Posts tagged Medical Malpractice

• Easy Open Pill Bottles Unsafe for Children

  Ken Margolin | November 20, 2006 9:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Following demographics, many pharmaceutical companies are making so-called "EZ Open" pill bottles designed for adults with arthritis in their hands. The problem is that some of the bottles can also be readily opened by children. The danger of a medication overdose to a child is made greater because many pills are colorful and sugar-coated, making them attractive to a child. Recently, a...

• Medical Malpractice "Reform"

  Ken Margolin | November 15, 2006 6:00 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Massachusetts, like most states, treats medical malpractice different than most personal injury cases. The Legislature bought into the insurance industry's false, but brilliantly executed, argument that medical malpractice litigation was responsible for driving doctors' insurance rates sky high and for driving doctors out of the state. It is easy to be suspicious of the motives behind the...

• Deadly Hospital Infections

  Ken Margolin | November 14, 2006 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  The prevalence of drug-resistant, hospital-acquired infections should still be a cause for concern among doctors and patients, according to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC's press release on the study's findings discloses that over the past 30 years, "staph" infections, acquired in hospitals and other healthcare facilities such as nursing homes,...

• Anesthesia Disasters

  Ken Margolin | November 13, 2006 3:00 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Two incidents involving anesthesia within the last two months, illustrate that anesthesia mistakes can be deadly when they occur, despite the medical profession's efforts to prevent them. At the end of September, a 5 year old girl died at the dentist's office, where she had gone for routine filling and capping of teeth. The child never awoke. Although the facts are not definitively known as yet,...

• Pharmacy Errors Continue to Kill

  Ken Margolin | November 09, 2006 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  A trip to the local drug store to fill a prescription seems as benign as a trip to the supermarket to buy a quart of milk. As a matter of fact, many supermarkets now have pharmacies. In addition to the huge number and varied types of pharmacies, add the proliferation of new drugs and the aging of the general population, and you get billions of prescriptions filled each year. The United States is...

• Catastrophic Injury Cases and the Day in the Life Video

  Ken Margolin | November 08, 2006 11:30 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Head & Brain Injuries
  

  When attorneys handle a case involving paralysis or other catastrophic injuries, one of the biggest challenges is effectively portraying their impact on the client's life. Words are powerful, but go only so far. One of the most effective tools available to the trial lawyer is the day in the life video. These videos show more dramatically than any verbal description, the difficulties posed by the...

• The Voir Dire Debate

  Ken Margolin | November 08, 2006 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Head & Brain Injuries
  

  Voir dire is the process whereby potential jurors are questioned before they are selected, to probe for biases that might impair their ability to impartially judge the facts. Voir dire has been described in a "Law Day" outline of the American Bar Association, as "one of the most important aspects of any trial." Massachusetts is one of only a few states in the country in which voir dire is not...

• Anesthesia Error - a Deadly Form of Malpractice

  Ken Margolin | November 06, 2006 12:30 PM | 1 CommentBoston, MA Category: Head & Brain Injuries
  

  Anesthesia errors, fortunately, are not everyday occurrences. When they do happen, the results are often catastrophic. Since a serious anesthesia mistake often causes deprivation of oxygen to the patient, death or brain damage can be the end result. To the great credit of the anesthesia profession, it was anesthesiologists who led the way to modern methods of medication error reduction....

• Crisis in Emergency Room Care

  Ken Margolin | November 03, 2006 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Since the 1990s, emergency room closings and emergency room errors have been on the rise, due to rising healthcare costs, shrinking hospital budgets and dwindling staff levels. During the same time period, the number of patients seeking ER care as risen.The American College of Emergency Physicians has posted an action-alert page urging people to write to their Congressional representatives to...

• Dangerous Drugs: Merck's Vioxx Study Fails to Clear its Reputation

  Ken Margolin | November 02, 2006 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  On September 6, 2006, two years after its voluntary withdrawal of Vioxx from the market, Merck released a self-funded study attempting to evade charges that the company knew of the dangers of Vioxx prior to selling the drug to the public. According to an ATLA (Association of Trial Lawyers of America) press release, documents produced because of the numerous lawsuits in several states that have...