Medical Malpractice

What you should look for in a good doctor

Published on: August 29, 2014 | By Jeff DeFrancisco

Anyone who tells you about finding a doctor who’s right for you knows how difficult it can be. Indeed, doctors are qualified to practice their respective crafts, but they may not have the bedside manner or the natural empathy that makes patients feel secure with their advice.

Also, not all doctors have a way of making clients feel valued, and more importantly, not all physicians follow the standards set forth by state law and professional guidelines. Further, patients may not be able to find helpful information about the doctor they are considering. As such, we feel that providing some guidelines would be helpful.

Your doctor should stay abreast of the latest research – It should not be lost on patients to ask whether their physician is on top of the latest research, trends and topics that matter to you. After all, you want your doctor to be knowledgeable and skilled.

Study: 1 in 10 doctors are addicted to drugs or alcohol

Published on: June 17, 2014 | By Jeff DeFrancisco

There is no doubt that the practice of medicine is stressful. There is immense pressure on getting it right, because failure could mean serious injuries or death. The overwhelming majority of doctors in upstate New York do take this responsibility seriously, but there are some doctors who are reckless or who let the pressure get to them. For the patients of these doctors, there is a real risk of medical malpractice.

Take one out-of-state doctor as an example. His alleged dependence on alcohol and drugs has had serious consequences. A number of his patients have been paralyzed with both paraplegia and quadriplegia. Many of them must now use wheelchairs because they can no longer walk. One man has even said that part of his spinal cord was removed in what should have been a simple back surgery.

This does not even cover the two patients who died after the surgeon operated on them.

How health care apps may help to improve the quality of your care

Published on: June 1, 2014 | By Jeff DeFrancisco

When it comes to healthcare, knowledge is indeed power. When patients are given access to information about their care, they become empowered to make informed decisions about their healthcare providers, their treatment and about their health generally. Although physicians are trained experts in the field of medicine, a high rate of medical negligence continues to plague the American healthcare system. While it is important to have some amount of trust in one’s physicians, it is also important to play an active role in one’s care.

An increasing number of electronic tools are helping to ensure that American patients remain informed about their health and healthcare. For some time now, the availability of medical information online has both been a blessing and a curse for patients. Many Americans find valuable, reliable information about health and healthcare online. However, a great deal of misinformation also exists on the web.

Thankfully, patient-accessible medical tools have branched out beyond the unreliable Internet over the past several years. For example, a number of apps that can greatly enhance a patient’s active role in his or her healthcare are now available on smartphones.

2 die, 61 infected after hospital and doctors fail to diagnose TB

Published on: May 17, 2014 | By Jeff DeFrancisco

Patients who are feeling sick or experiencing worrisome symptoms often seek medical help. In many cases, doctors are able to quickly and accurately diagnose an individual’s condition and prescribe appropriate medications. In other cases, however, doctors err in their attempts to diagnose an individual’s illness or disease. When a failure to diagnose occurs, the consequences can be devastating and result in an individual suffering permanent injury, disability and even death.

A widowed man recently filed a wrongful death lawsuit in which he claims a hospital and its doctors were negligent in failing to diagnose his wife’s serious medical condition. According to the lawsuit, the 25-year-old woman was being treated at the hospital after suffering symptoms commonly associated with tuberculosis. Having recently given birth to twin girls, despite her illness, the new mother was allowed to visit and engage with her premature daughters on a regular basis.

Over the span of four months, hospital doctors ran numerous tests on the woman in an attempt to diagnose her illness. In total, doctors arrived at 30 formal diagnoses all of which were wrong. It wasn’t until two days prior to the woman’s death that doctors even considered she may have TB and a TB test wasn’t performed until the day before the woman finally succumbed to the treatable disease.

Medical malpractice payouts in New York

Published on: April 18, 2014 | By Jeff DeFrancisco

According to an annual report by Diederich Healthcare, total medical malpractice payouts in the state of New York amounted to roughly $39 per capita in both 2012 and 2013. That is the highest per capita rate in the nation—fifty percent higher than any other state. Given this information, one might be tempted to conclude that it is relatively easy to obtain compensation for medical malpractice in New York, but that would be a hasty conclusion.

First off, keep in mind that it is often difficult for those who have been legitimately harmed by medical negligence to find an advocate to represent them. Much of the reason for this is economic—medical malpractice attorneys are often leery of taking cases that don’t promise a significant payout because the cost of going to trial is so great.

Those who can find a good attorney to represent them should keep in mind, though, that taking a case to trial is not necessary the best way to obtain compensation. This is because the majority of medical malpractice payouts do not come through litigation. Most of the time—96 percent of the time in 2013—such payouts happen as the result of a settlement.

Pharmacy sends wrong medicine home and seriously injures child

Published on: March 13, 2014 | By Jeff DeFrancisco

Even though doctors still “write prescriptions” they generally don’t give patients in Syracuse a written prescription from the prescription pad anymore. Rather, they send the information to the pharmacy, whether that is the pharmacy in the hospital, the doctor’s office or just down the street. Once it is at the pharmacy, the patient will pick it up and take the medicine according to the doctor’s directions. What happens, however, when the pharmacy makes a medication error?

One family is learning that a medication error can be quite serious after a 5-year-old was given a drug meant for an adult. The Illinois family had thought they were giving their son some medicine for allergies that they had picked up from a pharmacy two years ago, but it was actually a powerful antipsychotic drug meant for an adult with the same name as the boy. While he is fortunate to be alive, the boy’s parents are filing a lawsuit against the pharmacy.

Not only was the boy given the powerful Haloperidol, but the dose that his parents had given him, which would have been fine if it had been allergy medicine, was dangerously high. After taking the medicine, the boy slept for nearly two days, only to wake up and have a neck flare. Once that subsided, he fainted and was taken to a doctor and then the hospital.

Are the risks of surgery always worth it?

Published on: February 27, 2014 | By Jeff DeFrancisco

When someone goes to the doctor in Binghamton and is told he or she has cancer, his or her first thought is likely about how to treat it. While treating cancer seems like the obvious choice, there are some within the medical field who believe that treatment, or at least aggressive treatment may not always be the best choice, especially if the treatment requires surgery. There are always going to be risks associated with surgery, so it may be best, in some situations to opt for monitoring of cancer instead of a surgical fix.

One of the best cases for this option is thyroid cancer. There are a number of different kinds of thyroid cancers, some of which involve tumors that are so slow moving that they will never be deadly. Instead of having the thyroid gland removed and having to take hormone pills for life, some doctors recommend monitoring the condition and taking action if the need arises. After all, if the cancer is slow moving, it may be better not to risk a surgical error for a cancer that may never have a negative impact on a person’s life.

At the same time, if someone chooses not to treat a cancer, his or her doctors must then constantly monitor the patient’s condition. It may not take long for a cancer to progress. Failing to monitor the patient’s condition could also be a form of medical malpractice.

A hospital may have given 18 people a fatal brain disease

Published on: February 12, 2014 | By Jeff DeFrancisco

When someone in Syracuse goes in for surgery, he or she has absolutely no control over the sterilization processes used, how the operating room was cleaned and sanitized, or whether the doctors are doing everything they can to prevent the transfer of germs and disease. With the exception of just not going to the hospital, a patient can do nothing to avoid exposure to other pathogens in the hospital.

This is why, then, it is the hospital’s responsibility to ensure that their facility is as clean as possible, that procedures are in place to prevent the transfer of germs and that all equipment is properly sterilized. Failing to do so, however, is a strong indication of hospital malpractice. If anyone were to become injured by this malpractice, the hospital may find itself in court.

In this story, it could be a North Carolina hospital that will be defending itself against several medical malpractice lawsuits after it exposed 18 people to a fatal brain disorder. Known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the condition causes aggressive dementia. There is no cure, no treatment and it always ends in death.

Hudson Valley orthopedic surgeon faces multiple malpractice suits

Published on: July 26, 2013 | By Jeff DeFrancisco

A former Poughkeepsie, New York, orthopedic surgeon who is facing multiple medical malpractice lawsuits performed a stunning number of surgeries — an average of 17 a day. This is based on surgical logs obtained by multiple sources.

The surgeon, who was fired from a local medical group in 2011, has had 261 lawsuits since 2009 for botched, ineffective, or unnecessary operations, and more. In some cases, according to plaintiffs, the records show surgeries that did not take place. They say surgical logs indicate that sometimes he put people under anesthesia, but did not do surgery. Two attorneys say they have logs indicating that he performed multiple procedures in less than eight minutes. Plaintiffs also allege that he billed them for procedures he did not perform. Records obtained by the Poughkeepsie Journal corroborate the numbers found by the attorneys — as many as 22 in one day. By comparison, the average orthopedic surgeon performs 32 procedures in a month, according to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.

The surgeon, however, is not the only one being held liable. Many of the suits also name the medical facility where the surgery was performed for lack of oversight in failing to question or limit the number of procedures the doctor performed, and in some cases for ignoring concerns voiced by staff members. Several area medical facilities are named in the lawsuits. Plaintiffs’ attorneys say the surgical logs are proof that others knew what he was doing, and did nothing to stop it.

Syracuse hospital nearly harvested organs of live patient

Published on: July 11, 2013 | By Jeff DeFrancisco

The Syracuse Post-Standard has just published documents detailing a potentially catastrophic medical mistake by St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center in October 2009. They were about to harvest the organs of a patient they believed to be dead when she opened her eyes.

Doctors determined that a woman who had overdosed on Xanax and over-the-counter drugs had suffered cardiac death and irreversible brain damage. Her family agreed to take her off life support and let her organs be removed for transplant. However, as she was wheeled into the operating room, she woke from what had been a deep coma from the overdose.

When the state Department of Health reviewed the case, investigators found that staff had ignored signs of the patient’s improvement. They determined that the woman had not suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest or irreversible brain damage. The state outlined steps that doctors failed to take, including performing enough brain scans, and testing to ensure the drugs were out of her system. Further, doctors ignored nurses’ observations of her increasing neurological function.