Why We Need A New Category For Medical Safety Devices

I have had the honor to work with many medical experts and engineers responsible for developing important medical equipment, like the Hassan clamp. The Government should properly regulate the products they engineer. … although acute medical care presents myriad risks to patient safety, there is no category for devices designed to preserve that safety. Why […]

Georgetown Study: Medical Malpractice Is Not Random

Physicians with a single paid claim are 4x as likely to have a future claim than physicians with zero paid claims.  We find a similar pattern in both high-risk and lower-risk specialties.  We also find no evidence that public disclosure of paid claims has any impact on these patterns — meaning there is no “blood […]

The Increasing Incidence and Cost of Medical Malpractice

  The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019 raised the alarm while calling for urgent action to reduce patient harm in healthcare. The United Nations (UN) specialized agency stated that medical malpractice results in 2.6 million deaths annually. “Most of these deaths are avoidable. The personal, social and economic impact of patient harm leads to […]

Handling A Punitive Damages Claim in the Setting of Medical Malpractice

An appellate court reversed a punitive damage claim brought against a Hospital only. Where culpable or wanton (criminal) recklessness is alleged, the line between professional employment and misconduct outside the scope of that employment is always at play. Trial lawyers juggle that difficult balance in the most serious cases. Fourth DCA Reverses Punitive Damages Against […]

Man Woke Up Midway Through His Spinal Surgery (he thinks)

Though the hospital denies that Dalo woke up during his surgery, the man’s case is emboldened by his wife’s discovery that soon after the procedure, the supervising anesthesiologist had his license suspended. What’s more, the anesthesiologist had apparently been found unconscious on the floor of a bathroom in the hospital with vomit on his scrubs […]

“(Judge) Smith said he wouldn’t consent to delaying the trial for any reason “up to and including a zombie apocalypse”.

Federal District Court judges wield an awful lot of unappreciated power. I was joking with a colleague about the “tells” they use – a ‘menacing cough’ came up more than once. Early in my career, I hadn’t been able to read a room that well. One judge actually told me to “stop talking” because “you’re […]

Barriers To Quality Healthcare and How to Overcome Them

In my line of work, these kinds of cases often show up as patients who suffered adverse events because they “fell through the cracks” (an awful euphemism for getting substandard care). Our latest surveys of pharmacists, patients and providers to inform the upcoming 2023 Medication Access Report, support this. The surveys found that patients and […]

The Battle of Evermore: How the Insurance Lobby Rules Florida

The end of the year brings legislative sessions to a close, setting up final face-offs between special interests affected by pending legislation. Back in the Spring, I wrote in separate posts about a long hoped-for consumer win in Florida to change unfair wrongful death laws: Turns out, politics isn’t the only place where misinformation is […]