Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 10/25/2007

Nursing home malpractice cases involving patient neglect are often very difficult for plaintiff’s attorneys. Whereas in typical personal injury type cases jurors are asked to focus on things such as medical expenses, lost wages and lasting results from injuries, these things are often absent in nursing home cases. As a result, attorneys representing injured nursing home patients must focus on developing themes that focus on the nursing home’s wrong doing such as: that the nursing home puts profits over people; that the facility was understaffed and the home knew it; that the staff were not adequately trained; and that the case is not just about 1 patient but about a larger systemic problem at the facility. In short, attorneys often focus on the institutional negligence as opposed to the negligence of lower level employees.

Nursing home cases also differ from more traditional personal injury cases because they focus more on the pain, suffering and loss of dignity associated with the below standard care. In this vein, it is important for a patient’s lawyer to identify multiple witnesses who saw the pain and suffering; to show that the patient was being given pain medication; have an expert discuss the various levels of pain that the patient was in at various times and provide visual demonstrations of painful procedures such as debridement (removal of dead skin surrounding a pressure sore).

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 10/25/2007

In September 2007, attorneys Andrew Slutkin and Avery Strachan of the law firm of Silverman Thompson filed a construction fraud and construction negligence lawsuit in the Circuit Court for Harford County against home builders Altieri Homes, Inc., Altieri Enterprises, Inc., Frank Altieri and Daren Altieri, alleging that they developed and built a single-family house that they knew was not structurally safe and sound, sold that house to the Plaintiff, and then affirmatively represented to the Plaintiff after the sale that the house was structurally safe and sound, thereby defrauding the Plaintiff and endangering the lives of the Plaintiff and her two young children.

The suit alleges that the house that the Altieri Defendants built and sold to the Plaintiff is lacking necessary structural support, has a variety of construction defects, sways when someone walks up the stairs or in light wind and, according to a certified structural engineer, is so structurally unsound that it is in danger of collapsing. The suit also includes a claim of negligence against the engineering firm that allegedly designed the house, Consulting Engineers, Corp.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 10/24/2007

In Maryland, contributory negligence means that if a person is found to be 1% or more at fault, that person is 100% barred from making any recovery.

For example, if you are the victim of a rear end collision and the judge or jury finds you contributed to the accident by stopping too quickly, you can not recover for any of your medical bills, lost wages or other damages. Often in slip and fall cases, a Maryland plaintiff will be barred from recovery because a jury determines the plaintiff is partially at fault for not watching where she was going.

The Contributory Negligence Doctrine is unique to Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and the District of Columbia.

In medical malpractice cases, the duty to exercise reasonable care does not rest exclusively upon the doctor in a physician/patient relationship. Rather, the patient is bound to use the amount of care in the protection of his own health and well being being as a reasonably prudent person would use under similar circumstances. In order for a plaintiff’s negligence to constitute such a bar, it must be a true contributing proximate cause of the damages suffered. If it occurs subsequent to the defendant’s negligence, merely exacerbating the damages rather than contributing to their cause, the plaintiff’s negligence might serve to mitigate the recoverable damages, but it will not relieve the defendant from liability. This is not to say that subsequent acts by the plaintiff may not constitute contributory negligence. They can. But the test is not simultaneity but whether the plaintiff’s negligence has significantly contributed to the injury for which he or she sues.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 10/24/2007

The extra medical costs of treating drug-related injuries occurring in hospitals alone conservatively amount to $3.5 billion a year, and this estimate does not take into account lost wages and productivity or additional health care costs, the report says.

The committee commissioned to write the report recommended a series of actions for patients, health care organizations, government agencies, and pharmaceutical companies. The recommendations include steps to increase communication and improve interactions between health care professionals and patients, as well as steps patients should take to protect themselves against this happening to them.

The report also calls for prescriptions to be made electronically by 2010 and posits ways to improve things such as naming, packaging and labeling of drugs to prevent errors and reduce patient confusion and the creation of new, consumer-friendly information resources through which patients can obtain objective, easy-to-understand drug information.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Article posted on: 10/24/2007

According to a 2003 study by Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sepsis killed 120,491 hospitalized people in 2000. The same study found cases of sepsis in the U.S. have risen dramatically in recent decades, nearly tripling from 82.7 cases out of every 100,000 Americans in 1979 to 240.4 cases per 100,000 in 2000. Shockingly, Muppets creator Jim Henson died of the disease in 1990 at age 53.

Sepsis – the body’s ultimate response to a bacterial infection — is characterized by severe reaction of the body’s organs to the foreign bacteria and/or death. Sepsis is also referred to as systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS). Although sepsis often results from the widespread invasion of bacteria into a patient’s bloodstream, this invasion is not essential for the development of severe sepsis since local infection/inflammation can also cause distant organ dysfunction and blood pressure irregularities. Some of the common places in the body where an infection might start include the skin (celluitis), the lungs (bacterial pneumonia), liver, gall bladder, lining of the brain (meningitis), the bloodstream, the bones, the bowel, or the kidneys. For hospitalized patients, common sources of infections include bedsores (decubitus ulcers), surgical drains, intravenous lines, or surgical wounds. Unfortunately, bacteria live and breed in hospitalized settings, and thus, many healthy people who have suffered an injury requiring a drain, or IV lines or open ports into their blood stream often contract an infection that turns into sepsis.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

The labor and delivery process associated with the birth of a child is simultaneously exhilarating and fraught with considerable danger to the baby in certain circumstances. Too often, obstetricians and high risk pregnancy specialists, called maternal fetal medicine doctors, are, through their own negligence asked to make split second decisions that could potentially impact the lives of these babies and their parents for the rest of their lives. The most devastating injuries to a newborn baby are those affect the brain. In most instances, injuries to the baby’s brain are caused by a lack/deprivation of oxygen to the brain for a prolonged period of time during the labor and delivery process. For example, the baby might be in an unusual position that results in the umbilical cord (the lifeblood for the baby) being compressed or squeezed, thereby reducing the flow of oxygen to the baby’s brain. In other circumstances, sometimes the labor itself is too long (hours or even days), causing stress on the baby, and resulting in a shortage of oxygen to the brain. In still other circumstances, the baby’s red blood cells, the cells that carry oxygen to the brain are compromised, thereby reducing the amount of oxygen that reaches the baby’s brain. If these potentially catastrophic circumstances, and other similar ones, are not timely recognized, the outcome is often life-changing for the baby.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Severe back or pain is one of the more debilitating conditions facing many Americans today. Lower back pain pain, which starts below the ribcage, is called lumbar back pain. Mid-back pain, centrally located, is called thoracic back pain. Neck pain is often referred to as cervical pain. Sometimes this pain comes on suddenly (acutely) following an injury from an athletic activity or fall. In other cases, the pain comes on slowly and lasts for months and months, if not years. In many of these instances, the pain is caused either by degeneration of the spinal cord discs. Spinal cord discs are gel-like spacers that occupy the spaces between the spinal cord vertebrae. These discs are prone to wear and tear from injuries or from mere aging. As these discs weaken, the discs can bulge out of the normal disc space, or even rupture, which in turn, puts pressure on the spinal nerve roots that run through the back region. Discs that extend slightly outside that normal disc space are often called “bulging” or “herniated” discs. Intense pain often results when these herniated/bulging discs put pressure on the surrounding nerve roots. In many instances, the pain can radiate into a person’s buttocks or down into their legs. In severe cases, the herniation can result in loss of bowel or bladder control, leg weakness or even paralysis.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

In the early 1990s, health care providers pioneered an innovative surgical technique for patients requiring the removal of their gallbladder (“cholecystectomy”). In the years leading up to 1990, gallbladder surgeries were performed solely in what was known as an “open” manner whereby a patient’s abdomen was surgically opened in order to gain access to the gallbladder for the purposes of removing it. Beginning in 1991, the laparoscopic cholecystectomy replaced the open cholecystectomy as the first choice of treatment for gallstones and/or the inflammation of the gallbladder. A laparoscopic cholecystectomy only requires several small incisions in the abdomen to allow the insertion of operating ports (small tubes 5-10 mm in diameter), through which surgical instruments and a video camera are placed into the abdominal cavity. The camera operates to illuminate the surgical field and send a magnified image to a video monitor giving the surgeon an up-close view of the organs and surrounding tissues. After a patient is sedated, typically the surgeon will inflate the abdomen with carbon dioxide to create a suitable working space. The camera is then inserted and additional ports are created at other sites on the abdomen to permit the surgeon the ability to manipulate the surgical instruments in which ever direction is needed. The surgeon next works to identify the gallbladder and open what is known as the Triangle of Calot, a region created by the location of the cystic artery (the artery that connects the liver to the gallbladder), the cystic duct (through which bile flows out of the gallbladder) and the common hepatic duct. At that point, the cystic artery and cystic duct are clipped and cut, permitting the removal of the gallbladder. Although the surgery is very complicated and requires precise maneuvering by the surgeon, it can generally be accomplished within an hour or so.

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

Earlier this month, in the case of Smith v. United States of America, the Utah Supreme Court struck down legislation that capped/limited certain damages for medical malpractice injuries resulting in death. That legislation, known as the Utah Health Care Malpractice Act, had been on the books since 1986. According to the Utah Supreme Court, the legislation violated the state’s constitution by unfairly limiting the amount of recoverable damages for injuries resulting in death. Following this ruling, Plaintiffs in Utah who bring a medical malpractice case for medical mistakes resulting in the death of a loved one may not have their awards reduced or limited by the former non-economic damages cap.

So what are non-economic damages? Non-economic damages are they type of compensation awarded to plaintiffs for the losses caused by the medical negligence of others. Non-economic damages typically are referred to as compensation for the pain, suffering and emotional distress associated with the loss of a loved one. In a wrongful death case, these injuries are claimed by the surviving beneficiaries, as defined by each state’s laws. In Maryland, wrongful death beneficiaries include the decedent’s spouse, parents (if living), and children. In addition, the decedent’s Estate is entitled to bring a claim for non-economic damages as well. The decedent’s personal representative typically brings this claim by essentially standing in the shoes of the decedent and arguing that prior to his/her death, the decedent experienced pain, suffering and emotional distress that he/she should not have experienced. Non-economic damages can be contrasted with economic damages (things like past medical bills, future medical bills, out-of-pocket medical costs, funeral expenses, past lost wages, future lost wages).

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 Posted on January 01, 2017 in Medical Malpractice

9/18/15: Community acquired or hospital acquired bacterial infections are among the most deadly conditions patients face each year. Because of the high morbidity and mortality associated with bacteremia, prompt evaluation and appropriate antibiotic treatment are of paramount importance when a physician suspects that a patient has acquired a bacterial infection. As many of you are likely aware, when a bacterial infection is suspected, the first step in treating the infection is to fully identify the type of bacteria that is present. This is accomplished by drawing a sample of the patient’s blood (called cultures) and testing it in a laboratory. Laboratory technicians often employ a method of testing known as “gram staining”. This method involves utilizing a chemical stain known as “crystal violate” to a slide containing the blood specimen. The slide is then rinsed with water and placed in iodine and then either acetone or alcohol (this is called decolorization). This process, in general, permits the laboratory technicians to categorize the observed micro-organisms in a patient’s blood (under the microscope) into two major groups, gram positive bacteria or gram negative bacteria. Gram positive bacteria retains the crystal violent stain and appears purple under the microscope while gram-negative bacteria does not retain the crystal violet and appears pink in color. Although there are, admittedly, some bacterial species that cannot be visualized by the gram stain technique, the major groups of bacteria generally fall into one of these two categories. In addition to “positive” or “negative”, gram-stained bacteria are also described according to how the bacteria are shaped; i.e., cocci (spherical), bacilli (rod-shaped), how they are arranged; i.e., in chains or in clusters, and their size.

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