The organization recently issued a new policy that says planned home deliveries should have the same level of care for the newborn that would be received in a birthing center or hospital.
]]> The AAP's policy statement echoes one issued in 2011 by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and reaffirmed in 2013. Both physician organizations make it clear that they believe women and newborns are safest in a hospital or birthing center.The pediatricians' organization says its new policy is "intended to help pediatricians provide supportive, informed counsel to women considering home birth."
Though the numbers of women having planned home births is relatively low, the trend is on the rise, experts say. The practice is especially popular in the Pacific Northwest: more than 2.5 percent of Montana women give birth at home and nearly two percent of Oregon babies are born at home.
Nationally, the figure is still slightly below one percent.
Planned home deliveries come with big risks, however: two to three times as many of those births result in neonatal death, a 2010 study in American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology found.
The fatality rate for the mothers showed no difference between hospitals and homes, however.
The doctors' groups want to restrict home births to women at low risk of medical problems: healthy women pregnant with a single baby.
The physicians' groups also say the woman should have at her side either a doctor or a midwife and have a planned arrangement with a hospital if a health need presents itself.
Right now, about five percent of home births have an attending doctor, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
Source: Source: amednews.com, "Pediatricians offer newborn care standards for home births," Kevin B. O’Reilly, May 13, 2013
]]>The House's 77-38 vote sends the bill to Gov. Rick Scott, in what is considered a victory for medical industry lobbyists.
]]> As one Florida newspaper put it, the new law "could help shield doctors from costly lawsuits."Of course, what much of the media and legislature overlooks is that any "costly lawsuits" are the result of negligence on the part of doctors and hospitals. The people who receive compensation do so after proving to a court that they were harmed by the negligence.
So when we "shield doctors from costly lawsuits," we are making it more difficult for those injured by inexcusable and substandard care to get their medical bills paid and to receive future medical care.
The bill passed by the House "violates patient privacy, harms doctor/patient relationships and may not even be constitutional," said the executive director of the Florida Justice Association. "Today is a bad day for the rights of patients, consumers and the entire state of Florida."
Opponents of the bill have argued that the legislation is intended to shrink the pool of experts who are qualified to testify against doctors in medical malpractice litigation. Of course, it can often be a challenge to find a doctor willing to testify that a colleague failed to diagnose a medical condition, for instance, so by shrinking that pool of doctors willing to stand up for what's right, the doctors who do wrong are better shielded.
The bill also allows defense attorneys to have "ex parte communications" (aka private conversations) with physicians not party to the lawsuit. Critics say those conversations could violate doctor/patient confidentiality.
Source: The Ledger, "Florida House Gives Final OK to Medical Malpractice Bill," May 1, 2013
]]>Among diagnostic errors are failures to diagnose, misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis, researchers said.
]]> The study was published online earlier this week in BMJ Quality & Safety."We published this paper in part because we wanted to express the magnitude of the problem," said a co-author of the study. The associate professor in the neurology department at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine added that "there may not be a magic-bullet solution, but we've got to start monitoring and measuring and reporting these errors."
The doctor said diagnostic errors accounted for a whopping 28.6 percent of all paid medical malpractice claims from 1986 to 2010.
It was also the type of medical mistake most likely to result in patient death and in patients sustaining a permanent disability.
He said the negative impact of diagnostic errors on public health of might be "substantially greater than previously estimated."
The researchers learned that diagnostic errors accounted for the highest percentage of total malpractice payments (35.2 percent), with an average inflation-adjusted payout over the course of the period studied of $387,000.
The most frequent form of diagnostic error is failure to diagnose, with 54.2 percent, followed by delayed diagnosis (19.9 percent) and wrong diagnosis (9.9 percent).
The co-author said diagnostic errors are often shrugged off by the medical community because the mistakes are frequently not immediately apparent.
"If you give someone the wrong diagnosis, it may be days or weeks or months or years before they get the right diagnosis," he noted.
Source: Medscape.com, "Diagnostic Errors Dominate Malpractice Payouts," Robert Lowes, April 23, 2013
That's again the case in a matter involving the widow of a man who died on Christmas day of 2008 of a severe gallbladder infection after a surgeon had repeatedly delayed removing the man's gallbladder.
]]> After a mere hour of deliberation, an Alabama jury reached a verdict against the surgeon in the case that had been at trial for 17 days. As a result, the widow is now to receive $3 million in compensation.The jury found the surgeon had been negligent in the wrongful death of the 56-year-old Jefferson County victim.
An attorney for the widow said the doctor had "negligently delayed gallbladder surgery, which resulted in the death" of her husband.
The tragedy began when the man was first admitted to the hospital on November 22, 2008. All of the doctors who were involved in the man's treatment "on the very first day of (his) admission" to the hospital had agreed he needed to have his gallbladder removed, the attorney said.
However, the surgeon insisted on waiting to perform the operation, so the man was discharged on November 27, 2008. He went home for a day, but was back in the hospital on November 29.
He was there until December 5, when he was once again discharged without having had surgery to remove his gallbladder.
Just four days later, on December 9, he was back in the hospital's emergency room with gallbladder pain. This time he remained in the hospital -- until his death on Christmas day of that year.
The attorney argued that during the patient's month of being admitted and discharged, the surgeon repeatedly delayed operating on the man "for various unjustified reasons which ultimately resulted in (the man's) death."
Now the jury has acted to hold the physician responsible for those actions that caused such irrevocable harm and suffering.
Source: AL.com, "Jefferson County jury awards $3 million to widow in medical malpractice lawsuit," April 11, 2013
Now there are troubling signs that the da Vinci surgical systems might be linked to surgical errors resulting in injuries and even deaths.
]]> A number of Florida hospitals boast that they can perform operations with the multi-armed da Vinci surgical system. The $2.5 million robotic system helped surgeons perform approximately 400,000 operations last year worldwide, according to a CBS report.But some hospitals are starting to question whether they invested their millions wisely after reports of some "disturbing, freak accidents."
In one case, a robotic "hand" wouldn't let go of tissue during an operation, and in another instance, a robotic "arm" hit "a patient in the face as she lay on the operating table."
Even worse, the da Vinci system has been linked to at least five patient deaths, according to a statement from the Food and Drug Administration.
Proponents of the surgical systems say the doctor-guided robots are more precise than humans alone and that patients often have less post-operative bleeding and shorter recovery times. Also, robots' hands never shake and never get fatigued.
But critics are saying hospitals might have been too easily wooed by slick marketing campaigns and made the multimillion-dollar purchases before making sure that the systems are safe for patients.
The da Vinci robotic system is used in operations such as hysterectomies, gallbladder surgeries, prostate removals, heart valve repairs and some organ transplants.
Anyone injured by a surgical system or a surgeon's error should speak with an attorney experienced in Florida medical malpractice litigation.
Source: CBS, "FDA eyes increase in freak accidents during robotic surgeries," April 9, 2013
In the case of the 41-year-old, doctors failed to notice a two-centimeter nodule on her chest X-rays. The cancer grew and spread. When doctors discovered the mass in more recent X-rays, she was given six months to live -- a prognosis that proved to be too optimistic.
]]> Back in the winter of 2010, the woman went to a New York City hospital emergency room with a painful cough. X-rays were taken and a doctor told her she was fine; that she should take some Motrin and go home.But a radiologist at the hospital had noticed a two-centimeter nodule in one of the woman's lungs and recommended in a written report that doctors follow up on it. No doctor did follow up, however.
By the spring of last year, the single mother of a teenaged disabled girl was back at the hospital with difficulty breathing. X-rays were taken again and this time, doctors discovered lung cancer.
They said it had, unfortunately, spread to her brain, liver and spine. This past January, she was told she had Stage 4 cancer and that she could expect to live half a year more.
She lived less than three months. Before she died, she spoke to a newspaper reporter about her situation.
Though she was undoubtedly frightened by the prospect of her impending death, she expressed only anguish over the fate of her 15-year-old daughter, who is developmentally disabled and severely autistic.
"She is going to be left without a mother," the mom said of her daughter. "What is going to happen to my little girl?"
We don't know the answer to her heartbreaking question, but we do know that doctor errors and failures to diagnose happen far too often, leaving patients in similarly tragic circumstances.
Source: New York Daily News, "Tearjerking messages and gifts of hope pour in for late Lavern Wilkinson's autistic child Micalia, now alone after mom's bout with untreated cancer," March 17, 2013
Last week, the California's Department of Public Health issued its strongest citation against the nursing home accused of neglect in the death of an 82-year-old resident in 2011.
]]> After the man had been partially paralyzed by a 2005 stroke, he moved into the facility and was prescribed a blood-thinning medication called Coumadin.Two years ago, the man fell out of his wheelchair, sustaining facial bruises and a black eye. But nursing home officials decided against sending him to a hospital for treatment and examination.
The man's daughter insisted, however, and the nursing home relented four days after the man's fall, and sent him to a nearby hospital.
Hospital doctors determined that the frail resident suffered from "multiple organ failure," low blood pressure and a subdural hematoma.
They also determined that his level of Coumadin was 18 times above a normal level.
Less than two weeks after his fall from his wheelchair, the man succumbed to his severe medical problems and died.
The news report about this tragic case noted that the same company that owned the nursing home had been ordered to pay more than $29 million because of elder abuse at a different facility in 2010.
For families that lose a loved one due to nursing home neglect, abuse or doctor error, justice sometimes takes the form of pursuing legal claims that hold accountable those responsible for wrongdoing.
Source: Sacramento Bee, "Lincoln nursing home cited, fined for overmedicating patient," March 23, 2013
The Bakersfield vascular surgeon is guilty of "an extreme departure" from standard care, the California medical board says.
]]> The doctor denies the allegations. Through his attorney, he said that the accusations don't come from medical malpractice cases, but are rather from an internal review at the hospital.Hospital doctors question the surgeon's diagnostic techniques, the attorney acknowledges, though he argues that none of the 10 patients ranging in age from 58 to 87 were actually harmed.
The medical board cites the case of an 85-year-old woman in the doctor's care. He performed an "unnecessary" angiogram on the elderly woman, the board says.
Afterwards, he recommended surgery; an operation also considered unnecessary by the board.
The physician also used "unnecessarily high risk techniques" on an 87-year-old patient, including a procedure in which general anesthesia was used.
The board also levels criticisms of the doctor's "pre-procedural planning and procedural documentation." In some cases, he failed to compile documentation and in others, the compiled documentation was "confusing."
Documentation is critical for several reasons: it reminds busy doctors and nurses of a patient's history, and it provides critical background information for any new doctors and nurses who join in the care of the patient.
If documentation is absent, incomplete or confusing, the result can be damaging medical errors.
Anyone injured by an incompetent or negligent doctor should speak with an attorney experienced in obtaining full compensation for the damage done.
Source: Bakersfield Californian, "Medical board accuses surgeon of negligence," March 19, 2013
A new study says the lack of clear two-way communication between patients and their doctors can lead to a failure to diagnose, medical errors and medical malpractice.
]]> The research indicates there's no single reason for misdiagnoses by personal physicians, but rather that misdiagnoses tend to show a pattern of similar failures in communication.The study published in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that about 80 percent of failures to diagnose were caused, in part, by mistakes in the patient's medical records or by mistakes made by the physician during a patient exam.
About 20 percent of misdiagnoses were because a doctor failed to refer a patient to a specialist with more knowledge of an illness or injury.
About one of six diagnostic errors were blamed on patient-doctor miscommunication, and a similar figure is related to physicians ineffectively following up on test results.
Another 14 percent involve test mistakes, including errors made by doctors in interpreting the results of tests. In some of these cases, doctors believed the tests didn't indicate problems serious enough for hospitalization.
A lead author of the study says the data shows doctors are in a time crunch that sometimes puts a strain on them so great that they don't perform their jobs as needed. Doctors spend more time than ever on computers and with administrative tasks, the author says, and less time listening to patients, talking to patients and looking carefully at test results.
If you or a loved one has been hurt by a doctor's failure to diagnose a medical condition, speak with an attorney who can help you make use of laws designed to protect patients harmed by medical malpractice.
Source: amednews.com, "Primary care time squeeze explains errors in diagnosis," Kevin B. O'Reilly, March 11, 2013
Unfortunately, the rarity of the ailment also means it's more likely that a man will ignore symptoms and be diagnosed at a later stage of cancer development as a result.
]]> A recent Washington Post article on the subject described a man who felt a lump behind a nipple, but ignored it until his right breast began to discharge fluid. That's when he went to a doctor, got a mammogram and biopsy and learned he has breast cancer.He said his major fear before going to the doctor was "looking foolish" over concern about a breast.
Now he says he's kicking himself for not seeking help sooner.
"Both the patient and the doctor often don't have a high level of suspicion it is breast cancer," said the man's oncologist. "Some men don't come in, or some doctors don't get biopsies. It is not a common disease, which leads men to being diagnosed at more advanced stages."
There are about 2,200 cases of male breast cancer in the U.S. each year. There are approximately 1,000 times as many cases of breast cancer diagnosed in women annually.
The American Cancer Society says the average age at which breast cancer is discovered in men is 68.
Risk factors include a family history of cancer, obesity and alcohol abuse.
Anyone -- male or female -- who has been harmed due to a failure by a doctor to diagnose breast cancer should speak with an attorney experienced in medical malpractice cases.
Source: Washington Post, "Because male breast cancer is rare, many cases aren't caught till later stages," Laura Hambleton, Feb. 25, 2013
For a teenage girl who lives north of Fort Myers, it's that last form of error that has left her with permanent brain damage. Her mother is now pursuing a medical malpractice claim against the doctor whose misdiagnosis, she says, caused the irreversible harm to her daughter.
]]> When the girl was eight years old, she went to her mother complaining of a headache and neck pain. She also had a fever. The Massachusetts mom took her daughter to a pediatric clinic where a young doctor who had just finished her residency examined the girl.The doctor reportedly concluded that the girl suffered from allergies. She told the mom she could take the girl home with some Flonase allergy medicine.
The mother asked if there wasn't a test that could be performed to make sure there was nothing more serious wrong with her daughter. According to court documents, the doctor told her that no tests were needed.
The mom asked if a blood sample could be drawn to rule out meningitis. The doctor allegedly said the girl didn't have meningitis (an inflammation of brain tissue; if left untreated, it can leave a person with permanent brain damage).
Two days later, the girl suffered a seizure and was rushed to a hospital. There doctors discovered that she indeed had viral meningitis.
She then had a stroke that left her in a coma for three weeks. When she awoke, she was a different person; one with severe brain damage that will last a lifetime.
"I feel like I lost my little girl," the mother said.
While no amount of compensation can fix the damage done to her daughter, compensation will help pay for the constant care her daughter needs -- and will require after her mother is no longer around to help her.
Source: Lowell Sun, "Lowell medical malpractice trial set to begin," Feb. 27, 2013
Part of protecting her grandmother was to discover why the elderly, frail woman kept getting bruises and marks on her. She conducted her own investigation of the nursing home far north of Fort Myers and found evidence of nursing home abuse.
]]> After installing a camera in a flower pot in her grandmother's room in the Bronx nursing home where she lived last summer, the granddaughter was able to view hundreds of hours of recordings.The granddaughter said she uncovered the source of those mysterious bruises: a nurse's aide was physically abusing her 89-year-old grandmother, who suffers from Alzheimer's and dementia.
The 55-year-old aide can be seen in the digital video recordings grabbing the elderly woman's arm, twisting it, lifting her off of her bed and then slamming her back down on it.
The aide was later fired, and then taken into custody by law enforcement officials who charged her with endangering the welfare of a physically disabled person.
She is awaiting trial in the case.
The granddaughter says she can't release the video she has of the abuse incidents because of the pending criminal case, as well as an upcoming civil action she is apparently pursuing against the aide and her former employer.
Her grandmother has been transferred to another nursing home.
Management of the nursing home where the elderly woman was allegedly abused has declined to comment to news media about the case, but the granddaughter says three employees in addition to the aide have been terminated as a result of the evidence she uncovered.
Anyone who believes their loved one is suffering abuse or neglect at a nursing home should contact a law firm familiar with this complex area of law.
Source: ABC, "Woman says grandmother abused at nursing home," Feb. 15, 2013
After the procedure, the patient was placed on a gurney and wheeled out of the operating room. It was only then that the doctor realized a surgical error had been made. The operation was supposed to have been on the patient's left knee.
]]> The patient was then rolled back into the operating room for a second surgery, this time on the knee that was supposed to have gone under the scalpel.Since the two operations, the patient has complained of substantial difficulty walking and being incapable of bearing weight while standing.
The state of California fined the Fresno hospital $75,000, but that is likely of little comfort to the hobbled patient.
A nearby hospital was fined $50,000 for a medication error that led to a patient's death.
The state says the facility allowed the patient to self-medicate himself with morphine to control his pain after surgery on his right heel. However, in six hours, the man injected what turned out to be a lethal dose of the powerful drug.
A news report stated that the man had dosed himself with approximately three teaspoons of morphine.
The hospital has pledged to tighten its medication controls.
For anyone who has suffered a wrong-site surgery, or who has lost a loved one due to a preventable medication error, fines and promises might not suffice as responses to grievous negligence. In these cases, a discussion with an experienced medical malpractice attorney can make clear which legal option is best to take.
Source: KMPH, "Two Valley Hospitals Fined For Botched Knee Surgery, Patient Death," Rich Rodriguez, Feb. 6, 2013
But the events do happen, here in Fort Myers and across the U.S., and they're happening far most often than many believed. A new report indicates that approximately 80 times per week, patients are enduring surgical errors that include operations on the wrong patient, surgeries on the wrong body part, the wrong surgical procedure being performed, and surgical instruments such as sponges being left behind in the patient.
]]> That astounding statistic comes from a study of medical malpractice settlements and judgments over a 20-year period ending in 2010. The study was published in December in the journal, Surgery.Researchers uncovered "never events" resulting in awards and settlements totaling $1.3 billion in nearly 10,000 cases.
The frequency of "never events" is patently unacceptable, patient safety advocates say. A neurosurgeon interviewed for a news article on the study said patients have a right to expect that they will never be subjected to a "never event."
The average compensation for the "never events" included in the study was $133,055. However, it wasn't clear if researchers adjusted for inflation in their study spanning two decades.
The lead author of the study said the data shows that the errors aren't made mostly by doctors fresh out of medical school, nor by doctors in their last years of practice, but rather the errors are made across the board, in every doctor demographic.
Patient safety advocates say renewed efforts to protect patients must be undertaken. The key to surgical error prevention, they say, is in clear and frequent communications between members of surgical teams.
For those who have suffered damages from a surgical error, there are often enormous medical bills, loss of wages and other significant physical and financial harms to be discussed with an experienced medical malpractice law firm.
Source: Amednews.com, "Surgical errors: In ORs, "never events" occur 80 times a week," Jan. 21, 2013
The doctor who wrote the article believes that if the hospital and doctors had been more forthcoming and apologetic about their mistakes, they might have avoided a medical malpractice lawsuit that resulted in the jury awarding the mother $11.5 million. Though the case is far from us in Fort Myers, it will undoubtedly strike a chord for many readers here.
]]> The Massachusetts woman had gone through nine fertility treatments over two years in an effort to conceive. The 28-year-old nurse happily became pregnant with twins in 2003.However, three months before she was due, she began bleeding heavily and required an emergency caesarean section.
Her daughters were born weighing about three pounds apiece. Though premature, they were apparently healthy. Then at the end of their first week, one of the little girls went into shock due to an intestinal complication. The baby's blood had become acidic; a condition that can affect premature infants.
She was rushed to a Boston hospital, where it was discovered she had a tear in her bowel.
Last-ditch efforts by surgeons failed and the eight-day-old baby died.
In the days following the heartbreaking loss, the mother asked why her baby's condition hadn't been diagnosed earlier. No one from the hospital would answer her questions.
A hospital clerk even told the woman that no one under her baby's name had ever been treated at the facility. The woman began to suspect the hospital wasn't being honest with her.
She hired a medical malpractice attorney who soon procured hospital records. He had those documents analyzed by experts who concluded that the baby's death had been not only preventable, but was directly due to "deviations from the accepted standards of care."
The woman later said if only someone from the hospital had spoken with her after her daughter's death, "none of this" (the malpractice claim) would have taken place.
Anyone who has had a similarly devastating experience should speak with a law firm with a record of holding doctors and hospitals accountable for negligence.
Source: Boston Globe, "Medical malpractice: Why is it so hard for doctors to apologize?," Dr. Darshak Sanghavi, Jan. 27, 2013