The Swamp

Runoff from farms collects in Lake Okeechobee and is discharged regularly across the state, polluting the waterways, bays, and shorelines of Florida. Red Tide is just one of the adverse consequences imposed by big agricultural concerns (sugar, citrus, dairy) that lurk in the rural interior of the Sunshine State. “We discovered that nitrogen-enriched Caloosahatchee River […]

Conflicts In Medical Studies (Extravascular ICD)

If you go to the credits on the article, you learn a little about how global medical device manufacturers like Medtronic “support” the investigations conducted by health care organizations like Mayo Clinic and the New England Journal of Medicine into the safety of their new products. A link to the NEJM article on the Mayo […]

Ethics in Medicine

Why aren’t medical students trained in ethics the same way law students are? Ethics is required in school and your knowledge of ethics is tested in a stand-alone bar examination before a lawyer can start practicing. Here’s a link to a BMJ article on it. With consent, medical students get to observe most surgical procedures, […]

Victims of Malpractice Don’t Lose Their Patient Rights.

I know – for a fact – that this happens waaay too often. Sometimes, the physicians and trial lawyers share an interest in patient safety that is contrary to the interests of the doctor’s insurance carrier. “Protecting patient and physician confidentiality must be a paramount concern of medical malpractice carriers. What Coverys has done in […]

Every State Has It’s Own Set of Odd, Old Laws

I worked with a critical care doctor at a teaching facility who told me this: “Listen, Thompson, Don’t forget this. They want candy stripers practicing medicine.” That was 1992. He meant that hospital systems were leaning on the nurses to expand their traditional roles to maximize profit. Meanwhile, lawyers are citing cases from a century […]

Another Big Pharma Opioid Decision

I keep track of the successes and losses of opioid victims. While many victims have logged successes, courts continue to shield Big Pharma in some cases. Here is one of my favorite (and shortest) posts on my blog about the opioid epidemic and its aftermath. Normal Like You (More Opioid Fallout: Pharmacies Are Next On […]

Obnoxious Lawyers Can Ruin Their Client’s Case

And it wasn’t a real (Plaintiffs) trial lawyer. That was before his lawyer, Robert McKenna III, appeared in an online celebration video, bragging of his work and saying the case involved “a guy that was probably negligently killed, but we kind of made it look like other people did it. Citing McKenna’s remarks, the judge who presided […]