Originally reported in the New York Times, this study is getting wide attention.

“The study, released [Dec. 15] by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, estimates roughly 7.4 million people are inaccurately diagnosed of the 130 million annual visits to hospital emergency departments in the United States. Some 370,000 patients may suffer serious harm as a result. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University, under a contract with the agency, analyzed data from two decades’ worth of studies to quantify the rate of diagnostic errors in the emergency room and identify serious conditions where doctors are most likely to make a mistake. Many of the studies were based on incidents in European countries and Canada, leading some officials of U.S. medical organizations to criticize the researchers’ conclusions.

While these errors remain relatively rare, they are most likely to occur when someone presents with symptoms that are not typical, like stroke patients complaining the room is spinning. A doctor may not immediately think that a young woman with shortness of breath is having a heart attack or that someone who has back pain could have a spinal abscess. ‘This is the elephant in the room no one is paying attention to,’ said Dr. David E. Newman-Toker, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University and director of its Armstrong Institute Center for Diagnostic Excellence, and one of the study’s authors.”

Here is a link to the story in JD Supra:

Misdiagnoses lead to 250,000 ER patients’ deaths annually, U.S. study finds

The post Misdiagnoses lead to 250,000 ER patients’ deaths annually, U.S. study finds appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

I don’t know if it is rule number one, but it is certainly top 5: Don’t piss off the Judge.

The link to the Bloomberg story is here

Judge to Trump Lawyer in Ex-Aide Deposition: ‘Stop Wasting Time’

The post Pro-Tip: Try To Avoid Having To Call The Judge Minutes Into A Deposition appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

There’s nothing like a toe-tapper about a mass casualty event. When it comes down to it, that’s all the blues are about: making the insufferable thing bearable. In High Water Everywhere, Charley Patton sang about the 1927 Mississippi levee break that displaced tens of thousands. Patton lived on Dockery’s Plantation near Greenville, Mississippi, where the Army Corps of Engineers built a system of earthen wall barriers designed to control the Mississippi River. In the spring of 1927, the River flooded. The levee groaned before failing. Greenville residents are described as watching from the streets below as riverboats floated high above them on the topped levees of the cresting river before it broke. In many parts, the disaster was slow-moving. The muddy wall of water (described by some as seven feet high) moved across bottom land at a pace of fourteen miles a day. In the tense aftermath of the flood, riots and violence broke out between whites and blacks – who felt impressed into service of the recovery efforts and were forced into centralized tent camps that may have felt more like prison or slave camps.

None of this is mentioned in Patton’s song High Water Everywhere, but the feeling of dread, chaos, and confusion that permeated the Mississippi low country in early 1927 surely comes through. The blues idiom is like that – simultaneously and intensely personal and universal, putting the singer at the very center of a universally appreciated narrative of difficulty and sometimes tragedy.

Backwater at Blytheville, backed up all around
Backwater at Blytheville, done took Joiner town
It was fifty families and children come to sink and drown

The water was risin’ up at my friend’s door
The water was risin’ up at my friend’s door
The man said to his women folk, “Lord, we’d better go”

The post High Water Everywhere appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

Lee Health is evacuating up to 400 patients to hospitals in Collier County because of water pressure losses at two of its campuses. More patients will be transferred in the coming days as beds are found, said Dr. Larry Antonucci, president and chief executive officer of Lee Health.

When Lee Health says “campuses” they mean hospitals. These are not teaching hospitals. And they operate all of the hospitals in Lee County – three in total. So, all but one are being evacuated. Here is the link from the paper of record in Fort Myers, Florida.

Lee Health evacuating 400 patients to Collier hospitals; another 400 will be moved out of county

The post Lee Hospital Patients Are Being Evacuated appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

Here is the link:

‘I delivered my baby scared and alone.’: Mom raises awareness about hospital malpractice after traumatic birth

The post “By the time Jeremy came back with help, I had delivered the baby by myself with no one else in the room. All alone.” appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

The system for getting donated kidneys, livers and hearts to desperately ill patients relies on out-of-date technology thathas crashed for hours at a time and has never been audited by federal officials for security weaknesses or other serious flaws, according to a confidential government review obtained by The Washington Post.

If you ever wondered, yeah, that list is subject to the same problems inherent in all things subjected to human nature. Here is the link.

Thousands of lives depend on a transplant network in need of ‘vast restructuring’

The post Transplant Lists (are broken) appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

Justice Thomas and Shadow Docket Abuse

By nonetheless granting relief, the Court goes astray. It provides a stay pending appeal, and thus signals its view of the merits, even though the applicants have failed to make the irreparable harm showing we have traditionally required. That renders the Court’s emergency docket not for emergencies at all. The docket becomes only another place for merits determinations—except made without full briefing and argument.

The post Earth Day and Shadow Docket Shenanigans appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

“They insist that you go through an advice nurse as opposed to just calling the doctor directly to set up an appointment, which was what I was trying to do,” Flach said. “You should have the option of calling your own doctor.”

Kaiser doesn’t just get between you and your doctor. They also get between your claim and a jury – Kaiser forces binding arbitration on all of its insureds. If you get the feeling as a patient and an insured that you are there for Kaiser (as opposed to your health insurance and medical provider being there for you) – you would be correct.

Which is why an arbitrator found Kaiser at fault in the misdiagnosis of a deadly pneumonia by its phone service reps and a delay in medical treatment caused by its upside-down rules that put patient health last.

A link to the story is here.

The post Kaiser Permanante Has It All Wrong appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

 A former Virginia doctor has been sentenced to three years in prison for writing prescriptions that mixed powerful painkillers into narcotic cocktails that killed at least four of her patients, officials said,

I am working on cases involving opioid use disorder (OUD) and the misdiagnosis and treatment of conditions that flow from that condition. A lot of attention is paid (rightly) to the marketing of these drugs but it should not be forgotten that prescription abuse by physicians and pharmacies played a large role in the pernicious spread of OUD throughout our country. After getting our fellow citizens hooked, the medical community often treated recovering addicts like disposable garbage unworthy of standard of care treatment. This is unacceptable. If you or a family member have concerns related to OUD treatment and rehabilitation, please call me.

The post Opioid Use Disorder (OUD): Big Pharma and Medicine Made Off Like Bandits but what is the Human Cost? appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

The post Approaching Storm appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.