“Defensive medicine” is the buzzword used by hospital administrators and insurance companies to describe the practice of overprescribing tests to avoid missing any underlying or potential medical conditions or injuries. For example, if a patient were to see a doctor for a routine physical, and the doctor performed not only his/her duties but also ordered [...]
When a doctor is guilty of medical malpractice, it is his or her insurance company who pays the compensation: it’s why medical malpractice insurance exists. So when a doctor makes a fatal error and admits to it, it seems reasonable to assume that the insurance company would compensate the victim’s family. Unless you’re the sons [...]
A new drug called AG-221 is being used in the treatment of patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), a disorder which affects the blood cells in bone marrow. While the drug is still in Phase I of its trials, doctors seem optimistic about the results. Instead of destroying the leukemic cells, the drug forces them [...]
One of the more commonly misdiagnosed forms of cancer is bladder cancer. It is particularly insidious because of its high rate of recurrence; patients often require multiple tests and follow-up treatments after the initial course of action. Many patients have surgery to remove the cancerous tumors, but people with an aggressive, invasive form of the [...]
Any misdiagnosed disease or condition can be deadly because the conditions are left untreated or receive the wrong treatment. For people who are given a false-negative diagnosis for HIV, the results can be catastrophic: not only might they fail to get the treatments they need, but they could unknowingly and unwillingly infect others with the [...]
Celebrities are not immune from the risks of surgery. Their families are not immune from the heartbreak of bad surgical results. When comedy icon Joan Rivers went into cardiac arrest on August 28th, she was reportedly undergoing a procedure on her vocal cords. The vocal cords are delicate instruments, however, and doctors who perform even [...]
One of six preventable medical errors are due to a misdiagnosis. Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore conducted research into which medical malpractice claims are awarded the largest sums in payouts, according to an article in Claims Journal. The payouts study was published in the Journal for Healthcare Quality, a peer-reviewed journal published by the [...]
It is generally accepted that the first loss of consortium claim was filed in 1950 in Hitaffer v. Argonne Co., 183 F.2d 811 (D.C. Cir., 1950). It was a novel case at the time; a man, injured at work, was paid benefits by Workers’ Compensation, but his wife filed the claim. Though the claim was [...]
In 2012, a Massachusetts pharmacy shipped out thousands of contaminated steroid injections; the drugs caused an outbreak of meningitis. Recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued warnings to doctors about a Texas facility whose drugs may be contaminated as well. Unique Pharmaceuticals, located in Temple, Texas, is a compounding pharmacy: their drugs are [...]
Diagnostic errors account for a large number of preventable deaths each year, and exacerbate the illnesses of countless other people, according to a study in the Journal of Patient Safety. But what if there were a test which could expand a doctor’s view of which diseases might be more likely in an individual patient? Would [...]
