Articles Posted in medical malpractice

In the state of Massachusetts, there is a $500,000 cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases, except in special circumstances or when there has been a substantial and permanent loss of a bodily function as a result of medical negligence.

Many states have similar caps in place limiting he ability of medical negligence victims to recover full compensation, even though a jury may find actual damages were far in excess of that limit.

A Boston malpractice lawyer knows damage caps hurt patients. Recent reports indicate these rules limiting recovery in malpractice cases have a much wider negative impact than simply preventing victims from full recovery. Malpractice damage caps can actually make the entire healthcare system worse for patients.
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A pilot program at six Massachusetts hospitals is designed to increase patient satisfaction and reduce the cost of medical malpractice lawsuits, according to a recent news article in the Boston Globe.

Attorneys in Boston who regularly represent clients in medical malpractice lawsuits understand the hardship caused to victims and their families when a hospital or other medical provider refuses to accept financial responsibility for medical mistakes.

In one such case, a 74-year-old woman injured her back when she fell in her Watertown, Massachusetts apartment. Surgeons fused sections of her spinal column to immobilize it, in an attempt to ease her pain. When the surgery failed, doctors recommended having a pain management pump implanted, so that it could deliver pain medication directly to her spine.

Her sons took her to Tufts hospital for what was supposed to be an outpatient procedure scheduled to take two hours. When the surgeon was having trouble seeing where the tubing needed to be inserted, he asked a nurse to go the hospital pharmacy and get a specific type of contrast dye.
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Medical malpractice comes in many forms, one of the most common of which is failure to diagnose.

Sometimes, this is a failure on the physician’s part. He or she did not follow acceptable standards of care when making or attempting to make a diagnosis. (The fact that he or she was wrong isn’t usually enough to prove the case; a plaintiff needs to prove the doctor breached the industry standard of care for his or her field.)

However, there are some occasions where failure rests on the shoulders of the laboratory that processed and analyzed the bio-samples. Our Boston medical malpractice attorneys recognize that while these technicians may not have gone to medical school, they and their employer can still be sued for medical malpractice because of their role in the health care industry.
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Carl v. Muskegon County is an appeal filed in the United States Courts of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. This case involved a plaintiff who suffered a psychotic break while working as a home healthcare provider. He allegedly urinated on one patient’s head and tried to pour liquid soap on another.

He was arrested and charged with abuse of a vulnerable-adult and held at the county jail as a pretrial detainee. Due to his strange behavior and the nature of the offense, the plaintiff was given a psychiatric evaluation to determine if he was a danger to himself or others at the jail.

According to court records, the county jail used an outside contractor for all mental health services at the facility. The county selected this contractor. While two of the contractor’s employees where performing the evaluation, they indicated plaintiff was “floridly” psychotic. They also noted that the anti-psychotic medication he was currently taking was not very effective. Finally, they recommended that he be transferred to a psychiatric hospital.

Plaintiff was also diagnosed with paranoia, because he saw a glowing light in his cell that was tugging on his brain. But because employees who examined the plaintiff were not medical doctors, but rather limited-licensed psychologists, they did not have the authority to order an involuntary commitment of a patient, regardless of his or her mental state. They chose to ask for help from a doctor who was working as an independent contractor to the jail’s mental health services provider.

This doctor knew the plaintiff was on anti-psychotic medication prescribed by other workers. During evaluation, plaintiff denied all things to which he admitted during the first evaluation. He denied being depressed, denied any suicidal or homicidal ideations, and denied all symptoms that he discussed in the first evaluation. The doctor described the plaintiff as pleasant and cooperative and determined that he was not in need of additional mental health services.

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that the doctor and other employees of the home health care company were negligent in not properly treating his condition. This suit was filed in the United States District Court under 42 U.S.C. §1983. As your Boston personal injury lawyer can explain, this is known as a civil rights violation case.
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Shapria, M.D. et al. v. Christiana Care Health Services, Inc., et al. was a medical malpractice case argued before the Delaware Supreme Court. The plaintiff fell off a ladder and injured multiple ribs and suffered other injuries from the accident.

As your Boston medical malpractice attorney can explain, many cases deal with the issue of informed consent.
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Our Boston personal injury lawyers know the statute of limitations is always a major concern in the timing of filing a negligence action.

In Wilkinson v. East Cooper Community Hospital, an appeal heard in the South Carolina Supreme Court, the plaintiff was admitted to the defendant hospital in 2008 to undergo reconstructive breast surgery.

Once the surgery was complete, the plaintiff began to experience medical complications, and she required additional surgical procedures. Just short of three years following the surgery, the plaintiff filed a Notice of Intent (NOI) to file a lawsuit, because the statute of limitations was about to run.

A family alleging the death of a loved one due to a bacterial infection caused by improper insertion of a feeding tube will be allowed to continue with its claim, according to a recent ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

In Estate of Gavin v. Tewksbury State Hosp., the court was faced with whether the proper requirements to bring a medical malpractice for wrongful death under M.G.L. c. 258, § 4(§ 4) had been met. The trial court ruled that those requirements had not been met. A divided appellate court affirmed. The SJC, however, reversed and remanded.

Boston medical malpractice lawyers know that these types of cases require special consideration because both the technical requirements and legal threshold of proof are higher than in claims of ordinary negligence. An attorney with extensive experience in these matters can help guide you through the process.
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There is no doubt that medical professionals across the spectrum make mistakes each and every day, with a recent study published in the Journal of Patient Safety asserting that some 440,000 patients die annually from preventable harm in hospitals.

However, Boston medical malpractice lawyers recognize that not every health care mistake will form a strong enough basis for a lawsuit. Even proof of a serious error won’t go far if the claimant can’t clearly show how he or she suffered as a result of that mistake.

Of course, no lawyer can guarantee you a courtroom win, but one with experience should be able to give you a fairly accurate projection based on the facts of your case. One of the things we will analyze closely is the extent to which the medical error proximately caused you harm. We will be looking at the extra time you spent in the hospital, your lost wages from additional time off work, the physical, financial and emotional burden your illness or condition placed on your family, the cost of ongoing treatments or medication and whether the condition is permanent or will require follow-up well into the future.
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The American College of Emergency Physicians has released its annual report card on the emergency care environment across the United States. Massachusetts did relatively well on some aspects of the report, but there were some significant problems within the state as well, including a low grade for disaster preparedness and a recommendation that Massachusetts work to increase its hospital capacity.

Patients need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Massachusetts medical care system so they can protect themselves when seeking treatment. In any situation where a patient receives substandard care, he or she should also speak with a Boston medical malpractice lawyer for help pursuing a claim for damages caused by medical negligence.
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Medical malpractice reform has been much discussed as a means of lowering healthcare expenditures, even though evidence has repeatedly suggested that malpractice is not a significant factor in driving costs.

Despite solid evidence that the vast majority of plaintiffs recover large malpractice payouts only in cases where they have been seriously injured, new proposals continue the fight to fix a system that is not really broken.

Recently, for example, an opinion article was published in Bloomberg View arguing for a “safe harbor” for doctors in malpractice suits provided they followed “evidence-based” protocols. The suggestion is that we should move away from a local customary-based practice standard and instead judge doctors based on whether they follow national practices that are more widely accepted.
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