On behalf of Dyer, Garofalo, Mann & Schultz L.P.A. posted in Surgery Errors on Friday, May 18, 2012
There are few surgical outcomes worse than what a former Florida man suffered in 2007. Enrique Milla suffered from erectile dysfunction (ED) and was exploring his options, not unlike many other men with diabetes and high blood pressure.
After consulting with his doctor, Milla elected to have penile implant surgery. In the weeks following his surgery, his genitals became severely infected. The condition worsened into a potentially lethal gangrene infection and Milla's penis was amputated to save his life.
On behalf of Dyer, Garofalo, Mann & Schultz L.P.A. posted in Medication Errors on Wednesday, May 16, 2012
In a recent study, researchers found that 37 of every 100 handwritten prescriptions contained a mistake. Researchers found that electronic prescriptions were far less error-prone, with seven errors for every 100 prescriptions. While a 7 percent medication error rate is unacceptably high, it's a dramatic improvement over traditional prescriptions. Yet, only 36 percent of all prescriptions were electronically prescribed in 2011.
The statistics make us question how dedicated some doctors and hospitals are toward preventing medication errors. It's virtually indisputable that e-prescriptions reduce the number of drug errors, but it seems that some Ohio physicians and hospitals think that the cost and effort of adopting an electronic system are justifiable reasons to forgo improving patient safety.
On behalf of Dyer, Garofalo, Mann & Schultz L.P.A. posted in Birth Injury on Thursday, May 10, 2012
Last week, a 3-year-old boy and his mother won an emotional legal battle against the hospital responsible for the child's birth injuries. The jury decided that the hospital owes the family $78.5 million, but this eye-popping figure was carefully chosen as the appropriate amount of compensation for the boy's incurable cerebral palsy.
The medical malpractice occurred in August 2008, when the woman visited the hospital with pregnancy complications. A doctor improperly read the ultrasound - a role usually performed by an ultrasound technician - and declared that the infant had died in his mother's womb. About an hour later, a hospital staff member performed another ultrasound and discovered that the baby was alive, but was suffering fetal distress.
On behalf of Dyer, Garofalo, Mann & Schultz L.P.A. posted in Birth Injury on Monday, May 7, 2012
A new medical study may be of interest to couples struggling to get pregnant. Australian scientists recently found that babies resulting from intracytoplasmic sperm injections (ICSI) face a 10 percent chance of suffering from birth defects. That rate is 4 percent higher than infants conceived naturally.
The fertility treatment at issue involves the injection of a single sperm into an egg, a fairly common way of inducing pregnancy. Other methods of in vitro fertilization (IVF) present no greater chance of birth defects than natural conception, according to researchers.
On behalf of Dyer, Garofalo, Mann & Schultz L.P.A. on Friday, May 4, 2012
In Ohio, hospitals train doctors to avoid making patients aware of medical errors and apologizing for them because those actions would help the patient's case in a medical malpractice claim.
Earlier this week, we discussed a pilot program in Massachusetts in which participating physicians are going to fully disclose medical mistakes to harmed patients and then extend their apologies. The philosophy is that fully disclosing errors and accepting responsibility will allow the patient and doctor to acknowledge the mistake and move on, so that any necessary remedial treatment can quickly be administered to the patient.
On behalf of Dyer, Garofalo, Mann & Schultz L.P.A. posted in Medical Malpractice on Tuesday, May 1, 2012
There are plenty of issues plaguing the nation's health care system and no shortage of opinions on how to fix them. Many politicians and doctors blame frivolous lawsuits and multimillion-dollar verdicts for the cost-related and cultural problems with modern health care, but one group of medical associates is trying a dramatically different approach.
The Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) has started a pilot program in which participating doctors will disclose their medical mistakes to patients. Rather than trying to hide their errors, physicians will explain instances of medical malpractice to patients and apologize. The full disclosure is expected to further trust between patients and physicians while allowing medical professionals to openly discuss plans for remedying any harm suffered by malpractice victims.
On behalf of Dyer, Garofalo, Mann & Schultz L.P.A. posted in plastic surgery errors on Friday, April 27, 2012
A Michigan cosmetic surgeon unsuccessfully sought dismissal of a medical malpractice lawsuit brought against him by a former liposuction patient. The plaintiff filed the suit after receiving liposuction surgery through an unapproved device called Invasix. She claims that Dr. Dennis Hurwitz used the device on her as part of a clinical trial - unbeknownst to her - and that the doctor was even paid by Invasix's manufacturer for doing so.
Further, she alleges that Hurwitz used the device on more than three areas of her body, which would have excluded her as a candidate for the trial that she wasn't even aware she was part of.
On behalf of Dyer, Garofalo, Mann & Schultz L.P.A. posted in Failure to Diagnose and Misdiagnose on Wednesday, April 25, 2012
In 2006, a woman went to the emergency room (ER) with a severe headache and extremely high blood pressure. She was suffering from a life-endangering brain bleed, but the ER doctor misdiagnosed her with a migraine. She returned home and went to bed, but when she awoke, she couldn't talk and had lost the ability to move most of her body.
The patient nearly died from her stroke, but fought hard to survive so that her two young children would not grow up without their mother. She has overcome some of the devastating effects of her stroke, but cannot walk or dress without assistance and had to give up nearly all of her recreational activities like rollerblading, snowboarding and skiing.
On behalf of Dyer, Garofalo, Mann & Schultz L.P.A. posted in Hospital Negligence on Friday, April 20, 2012
Several weeks ago, a nurse brought a newborn infant to her mother for breastfeeding. According to the mother and father, the woman breastfed her new baby for three minutes before a problem was discovered: The baby wasn't hers.
The infant identity switch generated anger from both sets of parents, and one of the fathers aired his grievances on Facebook before the local media caught wind of the baby mix-up. The hospital responded by saying that it had a trustworthy system in place to prevent such accidents, and it was a simple nursing error that caused the switch.
On behalf of Dyer, Garofalo, Mann & Schultz L.P.A. posted in plastic surgery errors on Tuesday, April 17, 2012
As we've previously discussed on this blog, it's become increasingly hard for Ohio doctors to ignore the growing demand for cosmetic surgery. The market has prompted doctors from a variety of nonsurgical backgrounds to switch to the lucrative practice of cosmetic surgery.
To compensate for their inexperience, most of these new cosmetic surgeons undercut the experienced surgeons, making it hard for the public to ignore the affordability of the discounted procedures. Unfortunately, many people act as "guinea pigs" for the new surgeons, who are much more prone to surgical errors than their experienced counterparts.
