Posts tagged Medical Malpractice

• Causes of Anesthesia Mortality

  Ken Margolin | January 30, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Despite the fact that the anesthesia profession led the way in medical error reduction techniques, there are still too many anesthesia deaths and serious injuries. When anesthesia malpractice occurs, the results are often catastrophic. With general anesthesia, the patient is helpless. Serious anesthesia errors can deprive the brain of oxygen, causing irreversible damage within minutes or result...

• Deadly Medication Errors

  Ken Margolin | September 14, 2007 6:00 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  The problem of medication errors has by now been well-reviewed, and efforts to minimize such errors are underway in hospitals and doctors' offices across the country. Nevertheless, the problem of medication errors has proven to be a very stubborn one. In his groundbreaking book, "To Err is Human," Lucien Leape, M.D., estimated that medication errors caused approximately 98,000 deaths per year....

• More on Medical Miscommunication

  Ken Margolin | January 07, 2007 9:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  The image is familiar from television and real life alike: doctors, nurses, orderlies, scurrying through maze-like hospital hallways, off to one task or another. The size and varied crises faced in hospitals makes a certain amount of apparent chaos inevitable. When there is real disorganization, though, the results can be tragic. Miscommunication between medical professionals remains one of the...

• Charitable Immunity is Unjust

  Ken Margolin | September 19, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Protecting charitable organizations from liability for the negligence of the organization or its employees, may sound noble, but is in fact, unfair. The immunity doesn't really accomplish its goals, and insures that employees of an organization involved in a personal injury lawsuit, will be sued instead of the organization. Here's the way it works in Massachusetts. By statute, M.G.L. c. 231,...

• Medication Errors Due to Dangerous Abbreviations

  Ken Margolin | December 18, 2006 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  The pharmaceutical industry and medical profession have known for years that the misinterpretation of medical abbreviations can cause injury or death. Fixing the problem is much more difficult than identifying it. Medications are manufactured by any of numerous pharmaceutical companies, and are dispensed by tens or hundreds of thousands of health care professionals. Names of completely different...

• Chiropractic Malpractice

  Ken Margolin | February 17, 2007 7:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Chiropractors can seem to work miracles at times for patients with ailing backs. Some people swear by them and I don't doubt their ability to help in appropriate cases. There have been, however, some cases of horrific chiropractic malpractice, resulting in severe injury, even paralysis or death. While chiropractors are trained in the mechanics of the body, they are not medical doctors. As is the...

• High Court Ruling-State's Rights and Medicaid Reimbursement

  Staff Writer | May 06, 2006 12:59 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Medicaid is a program where an individual unable to afford necessary medical treatment may be eligible to receive state and federal Medicaid benefits. This is true even when another person or entity may be legally responsible to pay one's medical expenses yet the medical bills are unpaid awaiting a jury verdict or a settlement. Once a settlement or judgment is reached, Medicaid seeks...

• Real Tort Reform

  Ken Margolin | December 17, 2006 12:30 PM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Head & Brain Injuries
  

  I grudgingly give credit where it is due. The insurance, big corporate cabal, has run one of the most brilliant public relations campaign in the history of duping the American public. Their first ploy was the one most essential in any media campaign - they captured the linguistic high ground. Everyone believes in reform in the abstract, and the forces who want to eliminate the rights of...

• Communication Breakdown Results in Death - Medical Malpractice Settlement

  Ken Margolin | May 09, 2007 9:00 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Failures to communicate continue to bedevil the medical profession. Patient deaths and injuries due to communication breakdowns are especially tragic, because the preventative measure, was often as simple as picking up a telephone or sending a note. In an era of multi-million dollar technology and advanced bioscience, person-to-person communication remains a cornerstone of good medical care....

• Charitable Immunity - a Failed Principle

  Ken Margolin | April 17, 2007 11:05 AM | 0 CommentsBoston, MA Category: Medical Malpractice
  

  Most catastrophic instances of medical malpractice, are due as much to systemic failures, as to the negligence of any individual. Yet, you will never see a hospital as a defendant in a Massachusetts malpractice jury trial. The hospital - almost all in Massachusetts are non-profit corporations - will not have been named in the lawsuit, or will have been dropped before trial. Regardless of the...