Time and again in U.S. health care, new technologies are hurried into wide use with little testing, scant training of their human operators, and lack of solid evidence that newer really is better. After the flush of optimism has faded, billions of dollars later, we learn how to judiciously use the new equipment, but only….
Continue ReadingMedical Malpractice
How Good Is U.S. Health Care? It Depends on the Yardstick
Measured by results — preventable deaths and injuries due to malpractice, medical errors, preventable infections, misdiagnosis and other events that shouldn’t happen — American health care has a lot of problems. Millions of patients are injured every year, and upwards of 200,000 patients die annually from preventable errors and hospital-acquired infections. The United States also….
Continue ReadingPreventing Malpractice in Radiation Therapy
What can cancer patients do to protect themselves from malpractice in radiation therapy? This urgent question arises from a lengthy series of investigative reports in the New York Times. The articles exposed serious patient injuries that stem from therapists who are overwhelmed and inexperienced, lax regulation and indifference by hospital administrators. A key part of….
Continue ReadingMalpractice in Radiation Therapy: Hideous Injuries from Lack of Simple Checklists
More evidence of the urgent need for “checklists” to protect patient safety in complex medical treatments comes with a long article in the New York Times about terrible injuries from malpractice episodes during radiation therapy. Yet readers have to dive deep into the article to find this key point. Scott Jerome-Parks suffered terrible radiation burns….
Continue ReadingMaryland medical malpractice victims are hit by state court
An effort to overturn Maryland’s unfair malpractice damages “cap” has been scotched by Maryland’s highest court. The case involved Richard Semsker, a deceased Rockville attorney whose family was represented in a wrongful death lawsuit by Patrick Malone & Associates. The Maryland Court of Appeals has ruled that the jury’s verdict must be reduced to account….
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