We trust our doctors to make the right decisions when handing out potent medications. As of 2015, the American Society of Addiction Medicine reported that two million people in the U.S. had a substance use disorder involving prescription painkillers. These days, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that doctors only give out three-day [...]
Defective medical devices cost more than just money: they lead to additional time spent in hospitals and away from work, family, and friends. While most medical facilities are required by law to inform the Food & Drug Administration if a defective medical device leads to the death of a patient, Maryland is notoriously lax when [...]
Men who suffer with erectile dysfunction may be prescribed drugs like Cialis or Viagra. When medications do not work, however, a doctor may prescribe a different course of action. Intracavernous pharmacotherapy (ICP), also known as a penile injection, is supposed to help those with severe E.D. – like a man recovering from prostate cancer may [...]
A power morcellator is a tiny device that allows surgeons to remove uterine fibroids and perform hysterectomies laproscopically. By using this device, a surgeon can perform a procedure in a minimally invasive way, which means faster recovery times and less pain for women patients. A power morcellator may also be used in nephrectomies or splenectomies [...]
When we think of medical malpractice, we think first of errors made by doctors – an incorrect test reading here, a nicked artery during surgery there. But according to Medscape, it is the way in which an electronic health record (EHR) is filled out that leads to errors. The EHR has replaced the old-fashioned, hand-written [...]
A measure was passed in New York that would eliminate handwritten prescriptions completely and significantly curtail phone-based orders. The expansion of the Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing Act (I-STOP) law would go into effect on March 27, 2015, and is the first of its kind in the country. Now, the American Medical Association (AMA) is [...]
President Obama’s State of the Union Address on January 20th referenced a Precision Medicine Initiative, which the President hopes will bring American scientists and doctors closer to discovering a cure for diseases like diabetes and cancer. The term “precision medicine” refers to the targeting of diseases caused by specific factors or mutations in a smaller [...]
Ziprasidone is an anti-psychotic drug marketed under the name Geodon, and it prescribed to treat people with schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder. In December of 2014, the FDA issued a warning that Geodon and its generics could cause a “rare but serious skin reaction that can progress to affect other parts of the body” known as [...]
A recent appellate court decision by Judge Stanley Marcus may change the way medical malpractice cases involving cruise ship doctors are handled in the future. The case in question involved Mr. Pasquale Vaglio, a passenger on a Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCCL) trip. Mr. Vaglio fell upon boarding the cruise ship, docked in Bermuda at [...]
