Medical Malpractice

October 9th, 2013

Just how many people die from medical mistakes in American hospitals? As Scientific American recently explained, researchers have struggled to establish an accurate figure for decades. The Institute of Medicine, a non-governmental non-profit, issued a report in 1999 called “To Err Is Human,” which reported …

July 17th, 2013

Lavern Wilkinson of Brooklyn, New York, took a bus to Kings County Hospital’s emergency room in the winter of 2010, experiencing sudden and severe chest pains. She thought she was having a heart attack, but after a few tests–including a chest x-ray–doctors told her she …

June 12th, 2013

The Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania, on June 4, published a news article and the title says it all: “Medical Malpractice Case Statistics Show Nearly 45 Percent Decline in Number of Case Filings Statewide.” The author of the article also mentions that this has been …

May 22nd, 2013

On May 1, Johns Hopkins Medicine published a study with a provocative title: “Catastrophic Medical Malpractice Payouts in the United States.” The word “catastrophic,” for the purposes of this article are those medical malpractice lawsuit payouts totaling $1 million or greater. The study’s abstract explains that …

January 16th, 2013

One of the most debilitating conditions a person can face is chronic back pain, and unfortunately a majority of patients who suffer from the condition are not candidates for surgery. Back pain is usually caused by congenital conditions, most notably stenosis or a narrowing of …

October 17th, 2012

A few weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal published an article on its website called “How to Stop Hospitals from Killing Us” prompted by the statistic that every week, “medical errors kill enough people to fill four jumbo jets.” The author, Marty Makary, is a …

September 26th, 2012

This past August, the largest for-profit hospital chain in the United States uncovered evidence that doctors at its many locations performed heart surgeries that were deemed unnecessary.The New York Times reports that in 2010, a former nurse wrote a letter to the chief ethics officer …

May 30th, 2012

Priapism is a prolonged, unwanted and often painful erection which requires prompt medical treatment to avoid the risk of permanent sexual dysfunction and impotence. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic of priapism, sufferers may be hesitant to report it, but delay by the …

March 28th, 2012

The question is whether or not medical malpractice tort reform has enacted any positive change in the United States. The answer you get depends almost completely upon whom you ask. Advocates for tort reform legislation argue that doctors who fear lawsuits for medical negligence practice “defensive …