Law Blog

Having a loved one with a mental health condition can be hard on caretakers. Some mental illnesses have the potential to result in harm to others or self-inflicted harm that may end in severe disability or death. As a concerned family member, you do everything in your power to get him or her the best…

Preventative health screening offers flash across television screens and show up in mailboxes across the country on a regular basis. They claim that they can head off serious medical issues in about an hour for a couple hundred bucks through performing a series of tests heavily marketed to detect heart disease and stroke. Surely your…

When you go to a doctor expecting to get help, and you receive a diagnosis and plan of attack to make you better, you feel mostly relieved. At least you now know what’s going on with that abdominal pain or throbbing back. At least now you have a doctor who understands how to get you…

The coma is a medical condition in which the patient is nonresponsive to light, pain, or sound in a normal manner, and cannot be awakened. It is a deep and often prolonged form of unconsciousness. Individuals in comas are nonresponsive to external stimuli such as a prick on the hand, light shined in their eyes,…

Medical professionals who harm patients due to negligence may be liable for medical malpractice. But what happens when your loved one dies? Is it still a medical malpractice claim, or is it a wrongful death claim? No matter what the original cause was – a surgical error, a car crash, a fall down a broken…

Brian Tally, former Sgt. in the U.S. Marine Corps, was injured severely as a result of the incompetence of a number of doctors and emergency room staff at a Loma Linda, CA VA hospital. The misdiagnosis he received led to an extended period of malpractice and neglect for months that almost took his life. After…

There are many federal laws that physicians and those who work in the medical profession must know. Failure to comply with these laws may be a sign of negligence if a patient was injured while under the care of a physician, hospital, managed care provider, or other health care professional. We wanted to take a…

Some doctors, primarily specialists, take the idea of multi-tasking too far, conducting two or more different surgeries at the same time. Most patients never know that the surgeon they trusted to handle only their procedure was actually involved in multiple surgeries at the same time. Doctors and hospitals argue that these multiple surgeries save costs,…

There’s a rural health crisis in America that is making it harder and harder for people who live in certain parts of West Virginia to get quality health care. One of the biggest problems is that primary care physicians, the lifeblood of smaller communities, tend to leave for better-paying pastures in the suburbs and the…

When you file a medical malpractice claim, you must be able to prove causation. Causation is a legal term that refers to the required proof regarding a particular issue that stems from a specific action. As the plaintiff, you must prove the defendant’s action(s) or failure to act in some way (among other things) contributed…

Cases that involve a failure to diagnose cancer can include various forms of negligence. In some cases, a doctor may fail to conduct the tests necessary to detect cancer such as a biopsy or mammogram. In other instances, a pathologist or radiologist may act negligently by mishandling the patient’s medical file. For example, a radiologist…

Anesthesia is given to patients in various types of medical care situations (including dental care) in order to help them remain as calm, comfortable, and as safe as possible. Administering anesthesia places the individual into a state of either semi-consciousness or total unconsciousness. It allows medical professionals to perform procedures that would otherwise bring significant…

Harvard Business Review (HBR) recently profiled how surgical checklists are making a difference in reducing mistakes and improving medical outcomes. The HBR report profiled a surgical team at a South Carolina medical facility which reduced its mortality rate by a third, increased productivity, and saved more than $4 million a year since instituting the use…

In May 2019, Medical Economics reported that there is a rise in medical liability claims involving electronic heath records (EHR). An EHR system should help keep patients’ information current and readily accessible, thus helping to avoid mistakes. While these databases have numerous benefits, electronic health record systems only work as well as the software that…

California Congresswoman Jackie Speier has proposed a new bill that would give soldiers the right to sue the federal government for medical malpractice. Currently, federal law prohibits servicepeople from suing the federal government for medical malpractice. The “SFC Richard Stayskal Military Medical Accountability” bill is named after Army Sgt. First Class Richard Stavaskal, who is…

It seems simple enough: take diagnostic images and an oral history. Conduct a physical exam. Read the reports of the treating doctors and nurses. There shouldn’t be any reason then for operating on the wrong part of someone’s body, removing an incorrect organ, or even operating on the wrong patient. And yet, this particularly egregious…

A recent study by Clinical Spine Surgery disclosed an alarming and tragic finding. VA surgeons, all too often, are operating on the wrong part of the spines of our veterans. This study revealed that the major causes for this inexcusable type of medical malpractice were mistakes in standard imaging studies. Common errors include mistakes when…

As we age, we spend more time with doctors. Maybe we need blood pressure medication. Perhaps we’ll develop arthritis in our fingers. Maybe there’s an increased risk of cancer, or stroke, or any of the many, many conditions and illnesses that seem to affect the elderly population a bit more. We have every right to…

The New York Times reported recently reported on a Risk Analysis study which showed that maternal delivery difficulties increase on weekends, at nights, and during the holidays. The study analyzed pregnancy complications in Texas, from 2005 to 2010. More than two million births occurred in that time period. Per the Times, the study specifically reviews…

In August 2014, Tiffany Tate was working in the Medical College of Wisconsin cafeteria at a Milwaukee hospital when she suffered a stroke. At that moment she was only a few hundred yards away from Froedtert Hospital’s emergency department which includes a premier stroke center. However, she was not transported there due to the fact…