tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-350651142024-03-08T02:44:20.307-06:00LawSquawker • Thomas & Wan's BlawgThomas & Wan is a law firm dedicated to helping families and children injured by toxic substances, brain injuries, birth injuries, medical malpractice, dangerous drugs and defective products.Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.comBlogger100125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-76153962612271825882019-05-31T16:50:00.002-05:002019-05-31T16:50:43.734-05:00Government Report Details CHI St. Luke's Hospital Lack of Infection Prevention<div class="_5pbx userContent _3576" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-testid="post_message" id="js_2mz" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 6px;">
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Damning Government Investigation and Report Details Serious Safety Lapses at CHI St. Luke’s, Houston, Texas</h1>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Patients received medications that weren’t ordered by doctors; objects were mistakenly left in patients after surgery; and ultrasound probes were reused without being property disinfected, government inspectors found. The hospital says it is fixing the problems.</span></h2>
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<a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="async" data-lynx-uri="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.propublica.org%2Farticle%2Fst-lukes-in-houston-blistering-report-details-serious-safety-lapses%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1cDRfK45BUsRnoKhWzRIG5AbL6Z0CYwEl42MhCgBzkjpnJWiin3nzSQ3Q&h=AT1K2NIH18B8ewyDWbJtQzlwlkpISKgm1J6_yLogiQKMi06T76ks7ZkNyguTAA9n62EPyPwi2DzV7j9pnmh2SDDRmAiuYdMNqsatzk9ftG_bKvV3KWpRNR00R0Eszzu2zV-joBTjZzdSCTZTJCwMa2r3ln6kdlBju3q5ELyEJwaQlmnIKAPQVVf3kYqKeQf9WIHnO2p-CIV5C3azndG0xWBeaSJEa7i98gNaFy9wt2G5Q2QANn3r5I8rQrpXn7spJ-Xd9inpl30vXdCMOOaum-DtCBuP9dpLx0Ouynufm1Hh7Y7FqNL5IOkW_p9hoLHl08158Y7LEAvyi6EbqSI875ZTd6njDI7WFLgU1B1Ju1ePDS-k0dVAQWR_EGeup2OF9ZQ1QyI0H1DJ1BXVFRbnQE-hkSol-efVfgE6ZsdVMpuvJPSq-GookybzcnnGLE3-LO7zkGWvQ16vU8ZHoji0YUsSXozaYPAOb_BQ7w5gD38qlnWaG9BVKaKqbPa10yS0r6FGmIRKWu_FnguzVLZIFlHl8CebkMBGA-h4YIUzYFkew7FikR-MmkvXjMyCtdLl0VzNSP5bhsPtVFzHI2z9vU6mt3d7NjyVdrMQ-liQTkHyyf-GkpxlaTRnf8f_r8JBvw" href="https://www.propublica.org/article/st-lukes-in-houston-blistering-report-details-serious-safety-lapses?fbclid=IwAR1cDRfK45BUsRnoKhWzRIG5AbL6Z0CYwEl42MhCgBzkjpnJWiin3nzSQ3Q" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">https://www.propublica.org/…/st-lukes-in-houston-blistering…</a></div>
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Yuck, cleaning a transvaginal transducer with tap water and paper towels??! Sad, St. Luke's used to be a respected hospital.</div>
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In an interview conducted on 3/27/19 at 10:10 am, Staff#122 was asked by the surveyor how she was disinfecting the transvaginal transducers. <span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">She stated, "I just run them under the tap water and wipe them off with a paper towel."</span></div>
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Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-34393219440839027222019-05-28T15:52:00.002-05:002019-05-30T10:08:30.797-05:005 Things You Need to know about Preventable Newborn Brain Injuries<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">5
Things You Need to Know about Preventable Newborn Brain Injuries<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What
is HIE?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">HIE stands for hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy(now you
see why its abbreviation is easier). HIE is a type of newborn brain damage, due
to oxygen deprivation and limited blood flow during labor and delivery. It can
happen because of a problem with mom’s placenta, an umbilical cord being
compressed or knotted, a baby getting stuck or wedged in the mom’s pelvis, preeclampsia,
or too much stimulation of the mom’s uterus from Pitocin or another drug like
Cytotec, to name a few causes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Will
you see HIE in your baby immediately?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Some obvious signs that baby was injured at delivery
include the baby being limp, pale, blue, not crying, needing to be intubated or
requiring CPR, transfer to NICU, failure to feed, unable to be calmed,
seizures, just as a few examples. The full extent of the damage isn’t apparent
immediately at birth for a few reasons. The reason is, a brain injury from HIE
is an evolving process. Damage from HIE sometimes aren’t apparent until a child
has developmental delays such as <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>not
being able to roll over or crawl or follow an object with her eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Is
there a cure for HIE?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sadly no. There is only a tiny window to provide one
treatment! This is called therapeutic hypothermia (total body cooling). This
can reduce the extent of permanent brain damage if done within 6 hours of birth
and can benefit if done up to 24 hours after delivery. This personally scares me
because your doctor and the nurses must really be aware of what is truly going
on. This isn’t always the case and that is SCARY. Ask questions, be your own
advocate. Having this knowledge could help save your baby’s potential risk for
brain damage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Where
did the hospital go wrong with your baby?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">HIE is preventable. The failure of the medical
professionals to follow the standard of care for your baby is what went wrong.
These mistakes include not delivering the baby on time, failure to recognize
the baby’s heart rate is abnormal (not paying attention to the fetal monitoring
strip), and failure to recognize other relevant risk factors. There are several
things that can be done to prevent HIE--prenatal testing, close monitoring
during labor, prenatal and neonatal care, discussing if a c-</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">section is the best
option, etc. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What
can you do if your baby has experienced this in the hospital?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Children who have HIE will almost always require
expensive treatments, therapy and need various types of support. This can be
costly. SSI and Medicare will help but will in no way cover the child’s overall
well-being for life. Also keep in mind these benefits are usually only good
until age 21 and then what? They must seek help elsewhere. This personally concerned
me because you don’t stop living at 21. You and your child didn’t even cause
this. In fact, you put your trust in the hospital and its employees were
negligent. You have a case; let us help you. Ms. Thomas and Ms. Wan at Thomas
and Wan, LLP have almost 50 years combined experience helping families get
their children the help they need. Please call 713-529-1177 today. You won’t be
disappointed. Let us put your mind at ease. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><a href="https://www.thomasandwan.com/" target="_blank">https://www.thomasandwan.com/</a></span></div>
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<br />Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-82297564026425600742019-05-21T10:45:00.004-05:002019-05-21T10:54:06.805-05:005 Things You Need to Know About Preventing Blood Clots in the Hospital<br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></b><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">How
frequently is this happening at the hospital?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A global study has shown that 52% of
patients are at risk for dangerous blood clots. WOW, that’s a huge percentage.
If a blood clot isn’t detected, you can die. How you ask?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A blood clot can break away from your leg and
get stuck in your lung. If nothing is done, this often results in death.</span></span><br />
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<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span></b><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Why
do they happen in hospitalized patients?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hospitalized patients are at risk
mainly after surgery as they are immobilized and laying in a hospital bed for an
extended period of time. Immobility causes blood flow in the legs to be slow.
Slow moving blood is more likely to clot than normal flowing blood. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span></b><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">How
can nurses and doctors prevent them in the hospital?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nurses and doctors are crucial in
compliance and being educated in patient care. The hospital’s solution to the
problem needs to be blood thinners or compression socks/SCDS in these types of
situations. In a study I read, 10-14% of patients weren’t receiving the
necessary treatment ordered by the doctor. I thought to myself, wow, that is a
lot. Nurses need to be trained and held responsible if doctor’s orders aren’t
being executed. They also need to know the signs to look for so they can notify
the doctor and get the patient the help they need. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span></b><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">What
can you do about it for yourself or a loved one who is a patient?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is the patient’s right to be
informed of the risks and reasons for the doctor’s orders. It is very important
to speak up and ask questions. Your life or your family members life depends on
it. Having life-saving SCDs or blood thinners is very important. It is vital to
understand the dangers of blood clots and why you shouldn’t refuse treatment.
The hospital should have pamphlets and/or a video showing you or your family
member why it is so important to comply.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span></b><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">What
to do if a loved one suffers a serious blood clot and dies from a pulmonary
embolism at the hospital?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you are able, it is best to have
an autopsy performed so the cause of death can be recorded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Please try and get all medical records.
Furthermore, please contact Thomas & Wan, LLP immediately because we can
help. Please call Ms. Wan or Ms. Thomas at 713-529-1177. We have almost 50
years of combined experience in medical malpractice cases, and specifically,
death or serious injury from blood clots in hospitals across Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are here to help.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br />Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-27617455685338607282013-12-04T11:37:00.000-06:002013-12-04T11:37:07.456-06:00Preventable Hospital Error the Third Leading Cause of Death<div class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 17.33333396911621px; line-height: 26.25px;">The <a href="http://journals.lww.com/journalpatientsafety/pages/default.aspx" target="_blank">Journal of Patient Safety</a> has a new study out showing that approximately 440,000 deaths per year can be attributed to preventable hospital error...NYT has the <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/to-make-hospitals-less-deadly-a-dose-of-data/?src=rechp&_r=0" target="_blank">full analysis</a>:</span></div>
<blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 17.33333396911621px; line-height: 26.25px;">Until very recently, health care experts believed that preventable hospital error caused some 98,000 deaths a year in the United States — a figure based on 1984 data. But a new </span><a href="http://journals.lww.com/journalpatientsafety/Fulltext/2013/09000/A_New,_Evidence_based_Estimate_of_Patient_Harms.2.aspx" style="background-color: white; color: #666699; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 17.33333396911621px; line-height: 26.25px;">report</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 17.33333396911621px; line-height: 26.25px;"> from the Journal of Patient Safety using updated data holds such error responsible for many more deaths — probably around some 440,000 per year. That’s one-sixth of all deaths nationally, making preventable hospital error the third leading cause of death in the United States. And 10 to 20 times that many people suffer nonlethal but serious harm as a result of hospital mistakes.</span></blockquote>
...<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 17.33333396911621px; line-height: 26.25px;">“Do you as an American have the right to know if the hospital down the street left an object in a patient?” said Binder. “That information has now been taken out of the hands of the consumer by lobbyists. We should always tilt towards transparency.”</span></blockquote>
Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-85522332926907965672013-11-14T10:30:00.003-06:002013-11-14T10:30:29.515-06:00A Sad State of Affairs in the Texas "Safety Net"<div class="tr_bq">
Being poor or uninsured in Texas means you get left behind to die...not that it should surprise anyone...a <a href="http://www.texasobserver.org/a-galveston-med-student-describes-life-and-death-in-the-safety-net/" target="_blank">well-written article</a> by a Texas doctor who is in the trenches daily trying to heal people with no support from our great state.</div>
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<br />But <a href="http://www.texasobserver.org/no-insurance-no-service-at-utmb-galveston/" style="color: #5688b9; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">UTMB is no longer the state-subsidized charity hospital</a> it used to be. The changes began before Hurricane Ike in 2008. But after the storm, UTMB administrators drastically <a href="http://www.texasobserver.org/2991-storm-over-utmb-what-happened-to-the-heart-of-texas-health-care/" style="color: #5688b9; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" title="storm">cut charity care</a> and moved clinics to the mainland, where there are more paying patients. The old motto “Here for the Health of Texas” was replaced by “Working together to work wonders.” Among those wonders are a new surgical tower and a plan to capitalize on Galveston’s semi-tropical charm by attracting wealthy <a href="http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Island-could-become-medical-tourism-Mecca-4617755.php" style="color: #5688b9; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">healthcare tourists</a> from abroad. Medical care for the poor is not, apparently, among the wonders. Whereas UTMB accepted 77 percent of charity referrals in 2005, it was only taking 9 percent in 2011.</blockquote>
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<a href="http://www.utmbhpla.org/doc/Page.asp?PageID=DOC000766" style="color: #5688b9; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">UTMB ascribes these changes</a> to financial strain from Hurricane Ike, the county’s inability to negotiate a suitable indigent-care contract and loss of state funding. The state blames budget shortfalls. The Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, could have been a huge relief. However, Gov. Rick Perry rejected billions of dollars in federal funding to expand Medicaid, funding that should have brought access to more than a million Texans, including many St. Vincent’s patients.<br />Perry’s refusal is catastrophic health policy. For patients, it means that seeking medical care will still require risking bankruptcy, and may lead nowhere. For doctors, the message was not only that our patients’ lives don’t matter, but also that medicine—our old profession, so full of people who genuinely want to help others—will continue to be part of the economic machine that entrenches poverty. When the poor seek our help, they often wind up with crippling debt.</blockquote>
Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-78467365573402496102013-08-30T11:34:00.002-05:002013-08-30T11:34:47.822-05:00"The Worst Surgeon I've Ever Seen"<div>
Thank God <a href="http://www.texasobserver.org/anatomy-tragedy/" target="_blank">this surgeon has finally lost his license</a>...no comfort to the patients he maimed or killed though:</div>
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<span style="color: #373737; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Physicians who complained about Duntsch to the Texas Medical Board and to the hospitals he worked at described his practice in superlative terms. They used phrases like “the worst surgeon I’ve ever seen.” One doctor I spoke with, brought in to repair one of Duntsch’s spinal fusion cases, remarked that it seemed Duntsch had learned everything perfectly just so he could do the opposite. Another doctor compared Duntsch to Hannibal Lecter three times in eight minutes.</span></blockquote>
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Enforcement by the Texas Medical Board can only make things better--bad doctors only hurt and kill patients...and make things more difficult for good doctors...the Texas Observer has <a href="http://www.texasobserver.org/anatomy-tragedy/" target="_blank">a well-written piece</a> about the lack of enforcement. Hopefully things will change for the better before more innocent patients are maimed or killed:</div>
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Public Citizen concluded that the board moves slowly because it’s understaffed and underfunded. But when I talked to Medical Board spokesperson Megan Goode about this, she said Public Citizen had it wrong—that the board isn’t underfunded at all. Things were rough during the state budget crisis in 2011, but now hiring is back up to normal.</div>
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The problem, she said, isn’t staff. In an official statement, she wrote, “The way the law is currently written, with a high bar of evidence for the board to meet, the process can take time so that the board can build a solid case. It would clearly be a policy decision for the Legislature to consider whether the process or the standards for evidence required for a temporary suspension need to change.”</div>
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Leigh Hopper, formerly the Medical Board spokesperson, put it more bluntly. “You could have a Medical Board that’s the size of the [Texas Department of Public Safety],” she said, “but the state doesn’t want that. It’s more or less satisfied with the way that things work.”</div>
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Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-60435602775550043382013-08-29T09:33:00.001-05:002013-08-29T09:33:13.167-05:00President Lincoln was a Great Trial LawyerNice to see the courage from UH law student Benjamin Kemmy<span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 15.333333015441895px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>to <a href="http://setexasrecord.com/arguments/282249-letter-to-the-editor-tlr-should-remember-lincoln-was-a-trial-lawyer" target="_blank">highlight the hypocrisy of tort "reformers"</a> in Texas...and the greatness of our 16th President--a great trial lawyer.<div>
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My favorite example is the 1857 case, <i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Macready v. City of Alton</i>. Mary Macready, a New York actress, was walking down the street in Alton, Ill., and fell through some sidewalk construction and badly injured her ankle, leg and back. Lincoln demanded $20,000 but was only able to recover $300 at a jury trial.</div>
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Imagine that! Not more than four years before he began prosecuting the war to save the Union, the Great Emancipator was prosecuting a simple P.I. case!</div>
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But if you know a little bit about Lincoln, and you’re a not a member of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, that shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise. Lincoln, a true lover of the American justice system, had great respect for its foundational practice—the trial by jury.</div>
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Juries, as Lincoln well knew, are one of the indispensible features of self-government, where we as representatives of our community decide what practices endanger our safety and wellbeing.</div>
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Or as Lincoln put it, in his famous Rock Island Bridge case, “What is <i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">reasonable</i> skill and care? This is a thing of which the jury is to judge.” And it’s precisely the thing that Texans for Lawsuit Reform don’t want us as jury to judge.</div>
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<a href="http://setexasrecord.com/arguments/282249-letter-to-the-editor-tlr-should-remember-lincoln-was-a-trial-lawyer">http://setexasrecord.com/arguments/282249-letter-to-the-editor-tlr-should-remember-lincoln-was-a-trial-lawyer</a></div>
Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-49258347654427034712013-06-27T11:07:00.000-05:002013-06-27T11:07:16.623-05:00Our Constitutional Rights Slipping Away...The <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/business/headlines/20130622-number-of-civil-jury-trials-declines-to-new-lows-in-texas.ece" target="_blank">latest from the Dallas Morning News</a> confirms what most attorneys already know--in Texas, civil jury trials are disappearing. Walk into the Harris County Civil Courthouse and wander around the empty floors--it feels like an abandoned building. The Seventh Amendment is being eroded by many things: the high costs of litigation, tort "reform," arbitration and people who distrust ordinary Texans to serve on a jury. A sad state of affairs. <blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />“The Texas appellate courts have all but told trial judges that they need to grant more motions for summary judgment and let fewer cases go to trial,” said Steve McConnico, an Austin lawyer.<br />“We write motions for summary judgment today for our corporate clients that we would have laughed at only a few years ago,” said McConnico, whose clients include large energy and pharmaceutical companies. “The Texas Supreme Court has made proving causation and damages in all kinds of cases much more difficult.<br />“It is sad that this valuable and effective constitutional right is going away and people are not more outraged,” he said.</blockquote>
Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-42117655965023285602013-05-17T16:39:00.000-05:002013-05-17T16:39:02.802-05:00Learning is Good for Every IndustryA <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/opinion/how-health-care-is-learning-from-lawsuits.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=1&" target="_blank">New York Times Op-Ed summarizes a study</a> showing that hospitals learn from litigation and make changes to help protect all of us:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 18.85714340209961px; line-height: 27.5px;">Over 95 percent of the hospitals in my study integrate information from lawsuits into patient safety efforts. And risk managers and patient-safety personnel overwhelmingly report that lawsuit data have proved useful in efforts to identify and address error.</span></blockquote>
A good goal for every industry, whether it is in the medical field, legal field, petroleum industry--learn from your mistakes so you don't do it again. Common sense, right? Unfortunately, sometimes, it takes a lawsuit to bring about learning...Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-21434708877628620782012-12-10T15:33:00.002-06:002012-12-10T15:33:48.436-06:00Rick Perry took his own rights away...<a href="http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/short-take-poor-rick-perry-all-that-back-pain-and/article_7a70cf39-0acc-53a8-9183-c49b11b6c6b2.html" target="_blank">Rick Perry's strategist is now blaming Gov. Perry's doctors</a> for his continued back pain and laments the fact that he can't sue because of tort reform...which, of course, Gov. Perry signed into law in 2003...<br />
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Mr. Carney blamed bad advice from a doctor, who said the Texas governor would recover from surgery more quickly than he did. Sadly, Mr. Carney continued, Mr. Perry has no recourse against the doctor because Texas has strict limits in medical malpractice cases, making such lawsuits mostly a waste of time.<br />“It’s just a fact; it’s not an excuse,” the strategist offered, according to a <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Washington Post</em> account. “We passed tort reform in Texas, so we can’t actually sue the doctors for what they told him.”</blockquote>
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Back in 2003, the Texas Legislature passed tort reform and later Governor Rick Perry and <a href="http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/17797889/investigation-tort-reforms-limit-options-for-some-texans" target="_blank">his wife pushed voters</a> to change the constitution. "Proposition 12 protects your family," said Anita Perry in a television commercial.<br />
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Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-24789991352703434942012-09-20T09:41:00.001-05:002012-09-20T09:41:59.930-05:00The Secret that Doctors Know...and You Should Too.I read this in <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/" target="_blank">Newsweek </a>while getting ready for work this morning. I'd like to say it surprised me, but unfortunately, it doesn't. We live in a free country where we can get candid reviews on everything from restaurants to lawnmowers to investments, but when it comes to the most important thing--our health (and life itself)--we have almost <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/16/are-hospitals-less-safe-than-we-think.html" target="_blank">no information about our hospitals</a>. <br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">A 2010 </span><i style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">New England Journal of Medicine</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"> study concluded that as many as 25 percent of all hospitalized patients will experience a preventable medical error of some kind, and 100,000 will die annually because of errors. If medical error were a disease, it would be the sixth-leading cause of death in the country.</span></blockquote>
How can we as consumers of healthcare make informed choices when we don't have information on where the best and safest care is provided? <br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Take, for instance, the National Practitioner Data Bank collected by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is also known as the national “blacklist” of doctors. The public has absolutely no access to it. When I requested the list, I was given a version with the doctors’ names deleted; the only groups that can query the list are state medical boards or human-resources departments doing background checks. Ironically, sex offenders’ names are broadcast to the community when they move into town, but doctors who lose their license in one state because of sexual misconduct with a patient are shielded by name in the database if their license is later restored or if they continue to practice medicine in another state.</span></blockquote>
Competition and the free flow of information improves any product, industry, group of people. At least one state, New York, is doing it right:<br />
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In the early 1990s, New York state set out to address the horrific patterns of bad outcomes that health officials had heard about in some of the state’s heart hospitals. Mark Chassin, who became health commissioner in 1992, didn’t want to just slap wrists. Instead, he and his team did something radical: they made heart-surgery death rates public. Instantly, New York heart hospitals with high mortality rates scrambled to improve. Hospital executives held meetings with heart surgeons, nurses, and techs to find out what they had to do to improve quality and safety. At one hospital, the staff reported that a surgeon wasn’t fit to be operating; his mortality rate was so high it was skewing the hospital’s average. His hospital administrators ordered him, point-blank, to stop doing heart surgery.<br />The result of the release of this data? Big, broad improvements in mortality statewide. Despite some criticism of the program’s notable loopholes, with each passing year of public reporting the state’s average death rate went down. In addition, bad outliers, like the hospital with the 18 percent mortality rate, were reined in. Erie County Medical Center was the state’s worst-performing hospital, with an overall mortality rate higher than that of soldiers wounded in the Iraq War. Within three years the mortality rate was cut to 7 percent, and in the years since, it has fallen to 1.7 percent. Introducing transparency to New York’s heart centers brought something very novel and powerful to health care: public accountability.<br /> </blockquote>
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Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-79054132959303327502012-08-31T15:59:00.001-05:002012-08-31T16:00:31.156-05:00Tea Party Speaks Up for Victims of Negligence<span style="font-family: inherit;">A <a href="http://stoptlr.com/blog/?p=208" target="_blank">letter</a> from Tea Partier Mark McCaig of <a href="http://www.stoptlr.com/freemarket.php" target="_blank">Texans for Individual Rights/StopTLR</a> to Republican officials in Texas who want to continue suing the federal government--these are some of the same Republicans that want to keep individuals and small businesses from suing for negligence caused by others, i.e. "tort reform." </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Make no mistake- there is absolutely NO difference between Attorney General Abbott going to court to defend the rights of Texans and a private attorney going to court to stand up for those who have been harmed.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Likewise, Texas Monthly reiterates what we have long known: <a href="http://healthcare.dmagazine.com/2012/08/28/studies-texas-tort-reform-had-no-effect-on-physician-supply-lowering-costs/" target="_blank">T<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 1em;">exas Tort Reform Has Had No Effect on Physician Supply, Lowering Costs</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">...and not surprisingly Gov. Rick Perry gets it wrong also...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Four researchers—including a University of Texas law professor—<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2047433" style="color: #406fad; text-decoration: none;">concluded</a> that there was no evidence that Texas physicians were leaving the state prior to the 2003 law, or that there was a significant increase in physicians moving to Texas because of better liability climate.<br />The 2003 legislation, which resulted a 70 percent decrease in medical malpractice claims, limited non-economic damages to $250,000 for a healthcare provider and $500,000 for healthcare facilities. Malpractice claim payouts dropped by more than 75 percent. Insurance premiums fell by about one half.<br />Gov. Rick Perry, during his failed presidential campaign, claimed that Texas has added 21,000 physicians because of the law. PolitiFact, a news organization that attempts to verify political statements, disputed that figure and the number of practicing physicians was 12,788, and quoted experts who credited the state’s increasing population rather than its liability climate.</span></blockquote>
Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-16256952661852212712012-08-24T14:52:00.003-05:002012-08-24T14:52:53.294-05:00More on Sanctioned Doctors<a href="http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/texas/report-dangerous-docs-not-sanctioned" target="_blank">KXAN of Austin</a> has more on the <a href="http://www.citizen.org/hrg2063" target="_blank">recent report</a> by <a href="http://www.citizen.org/" target="_blank">Public Citizen</a> showing that 58% of sanctioned Texas doctors have still not been disciplined:<br />
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<a href="http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/texas/report-dangerous-docs-not-sanctioned" target="_blank">Report: Dangerous docs not sanctioned</a></div>
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Some facts contained in the 18-page report regarding the severity of the doctors' offenses include:</div>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;">Many of the physicians were disciplined by hospitals and other health care institutions because they were deemed an immediate threat to the health and safety of patients, incompetent or negligent, they committed sexual misconduct or insurance fraud, they abused drugs or alcohol, or they provided substandard care to patients.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;">A quarter of the 459 physicians have been sanctioned by health care facilities more than once.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;">Nearly half of the 459 physicians had one or more medical malpractice reports.</li>
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Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-10772863480795779132012-08-23T10:35:00.001-05:002012-08-23T10:35:28.597-05:00Sanctioned Doctors not Disciplined due to Lack of Funding<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Yet another thing Texas chooses to underfund...the Texas Medical Board... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Choosing not to discipline gross misconduct of these bad apples brings down the good work that most physicians provide to us, thus lowering the health care standards to the detriment of everyone. As <a href="http://www.citizen.org/" target="_blank">Public Citizen</a> reports, <em style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><strong>459 Physicians Have Been Sanctioned by Texas Hospitals and Other Health Care Institutions But Not Disciplined by the State Medical Board:</strong></em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Fifty-eight percent of Texas doctors who have been sanctioned for serious offenses by health care entities, mainly hospitals, over the past two decades have <a href="http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=3694" target="_blank">never been disciplined by the state medical board</a>. This shows that the state must do a much better job to protect patients from such dangerous doctors, Public Citizen told Gov. Rick Perry today.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Some facts contained in the report regarding the severity of the offenses of the 459 doctors who escaped board sanctions include:</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">• Many of the physicians were disciplined by hospitals and other health care institutions because they were deemed an immediate threat to the health and safety of patients, incompetent or negligent, they committed sexual misconduct or insurance fraud, they abused drugs or alcohol, or they provided substandard care to patients.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">• A quarter of the 459 physicians have been sanctioned by health care facilities more than once.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">• Nearly half of the 459 physicians had one or more medical malpractice reports.<br />One of these physicians had clinical privileges restricted by a peer review committee in 2010 for substandard care. The physician had 11 medical malpractice payments between 1993 and 2011 for a total payout of $2.1 million, the reasons for which included: failure to diagnose (four cases); improper performance (two cases); improper management (two cases); failure to treat; improper technique; and performing an unnecessary procedure. One of the cases involved the death of a patient.</span></blockquote>
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“These violations are not minor,” said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group. “In our investigation we’ve identified physicians who have committed gross breaches of medical and ethical standards, yet they have not been sanctioned by the state medical board, the institution whose primary duty is to make sure practitioners taking care of Texas patients are qualified to do so.”</span></div>
Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-85716116817206846142012-08-20T11:39:00.001-05:002012-08-20T11:39:15.992-05:00Judicial Politics Leaves Some Plaintiffs in LimboUnfortunately, the Texas judicial system continues to be stacked against injured parties and in favor of negligent people and insurance companies: <br />
<br />
<blockquote>
A personal tragedy has turned into a very public legal fight for one Texas family. It's a story that may shed some light on weaknesses within the state's judicial system.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Imagine not being able to remember where you were sitting at a restaurant after a simple trip to the restroom. That’s the life Michelle Gaines leads today. A traumatic brain injury suffered in a devastating car wreck in 2006 robbed her of a healthy mind. Then, a jury in her community awarded her $8 million, before a court of appeals overturned it. Now, <a href="http://austin.ynn.com/content/capital_tonight/286386/capital-tonight--judicial-politics-leave-some-plaintiffs-in-limbo" target="_blank">the Texas Supreme Court is refusing to hear the case</a>.</blockquote>
Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-38200893339700482062011-09-16T09:26:00.003-05:002011-09-16T09:40:37.361-05:00Study contradicts med-mal 'reform' argumentsThis from the <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.justice.org/cps/rde/xchg/justice/hs.xsl/default.htm">American Association of Justice</a>:<br /><br /><div id="articleBody"> <div></div><blockquote><div>Less than a quarter of the claims that doctors filed with an insurer seeking coverage for medical malpractice liability resulted in payments to the patients who alleged harm, according to a study published in the <em>New</em> <em>England</em> <em>Journal</em> <em>of</em> <em>Medicine</em>. The low rate of payments shows that insurers deny far more claims than they pay--and that the so-called medical malpractice crisis is nonexistent, plaintiff lawyers say.<br /><br /></div> <div>The study, "<a title="http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsa1012370" href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsa1012370" target="_blank"><span title="http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsa1012370" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128);"><strong title="http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsa1012370">Malpractice</strong> <strong title="http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsa1012370">Risk</strong> <strong title="http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsa1012370">According</strong> <strong title="http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsa1012370">to</strong> <strong title="http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsa1012370">Physician</strong> <strong title="http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMsa1012370">Specialty</strong></span></a>," looked at data between 1991 and 2005 for all the physicians covered by one national insurer. It found that while 7.4 percent of physicians faced a malpractice claim annually, only 1.6 percent had a claim that led to a payment. Seventy-eight percent of claims did not result in payments. The study considered only claims filed with the insurer, not lawsuits filed in court.<br /><br /></div> <div>"What this new study tells us is that the supposed wave of malpractice payments is actually a myth that has been built up by the scare tactics of insurance companies and tort 'reform' groups," said AAJ President Gary Paul in a statement.<br /><br /></div> <div>Denver lawyer Jim Leventhal agreed. To recoup their losses in the real estate and stock market, insurers have "increased premiums on physicians and blamed it on lawsuits," he said, adding that this misrepresentation of lawsuits' impact comes "at the unfair expense of physicians and patients."<br /><br /></div> <div>The study authors noted that the factors that drive the likelihood of a claim are independent of the factors that affect payment size. Doctors in certain high-risk specialties, like neurosurgery, were more likely to face claims, but those claims were not more likely to result in payments, and those payments were not larger than those for physicians in lower-risk specialties.</div> <div><br />The discrepancy between claims and payments reinforces the argument against damages caps in med-mal cases, Leventhal said. He noted that although tort "reformers" say caps lower malpractice insurance rates, states with caps often have higher rates than those without caps.</div> <div><br />The study highlights the "absolute unfairness of caps, which make it financially impossible for catastrophically injured patients or families of patients who have died to pursue claims because the cost of going forward exceeds what their state allows them to collect," he said.</div> <div><br />"A strong civil justice system offers injured patients the ability to hold negligent providers accountable and increases patient safety to help prevent negligence before it occurs," Paul said.<br /><br />"Instead of allowing insurance companies and tort reform groups to perpetuate these myths, we should focus on patient safety as a proven way of reducing claims and saving lives."</div></blockquote><div></div> </div>Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-66648207305157232852011-08-04T17:05:00.004-05:002011-08-04T17:08:48.696-05:00Medically Incompetent Doctors Flee to TexasScary. Very scary.<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span> <br /><br />From <a href="http://www.kristv.com/full-coverage/neurosurgeon-accused-of-malpractice/">KRIS Corpus Christi</a> and <a href="http://www.texaswatch.org/">Texas Watch</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>Corpus Christi neurosurgeon Stefan Konasiewicz is on <a href="http://www.kristv.com/news/local-surgeon-accused-in-several-malpractice-cases/" target="_blank">trial in Minnesota</a> this week for medical malpractice. Konasiewicz left a trail of medical incompetence in Minnesota that has resulted in <a href="http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/205761/publisher_ID/36/" target="_blank">nine medical malpractice lawsuits</a>, some involving patient deaths, as well as a <a href="http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/179594/publisher_ID/36/" target="_blank">public reprimand by the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice</a>.<div class="entry"> <p>Rather than face the music in Minnesota Konasiewicz fled to Texas where lax oversight and a broken legal system allow bad doctors to keep seeing patients, turning our state into a safe haven for dangerous doctors like Konasiewicz.<span id="more-3994"></span></p> <p><a href="http://www.texaswatch.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Konasciewicz.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-3995" title="Konasciewicz" src="http://www.texaswatch.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Konasciewicz-224x300.jpg" alt="" width="224" height="300" /></a>The Texas Medical Board, which is tasked with policing the medical profession, isn’t required to disclose – or even look into – cases of medical malpractice when a doctor moves from another state. <a href="http://www.kristv.com/videoplayer/?video_id=15315&categories=46" target="_blank">So, patients have no way of knowing what their physician’s track record is</a>. On top of that, if you are injured (or worse), the law is structured such that most patients and their families have no way of seeking justice through the legal system.</p> <p>That’s right, Texas has a virtually impenetrable layer of legal protection that allows doctors to avoid legal accountability after a patient has been harmed. In 2003, lawmakers enacted severe and arbitrary restrictions on the ability of patients to sue a dangerous doctor or careless hospital for medical malpractice. This has made it practically impossible for most patients to bring a case against a dangerous physician in our courts.</p> <p>Advocates have long feared that after patients lost the ability to sue a doctor for botching a surgery or otherwise negligently maiming them physicians like Dr. Konasiewicz would seek refuge in Texas. Looks like their fears are warranted.</p> <p><strong>Our feckless medical oversight board is coupled with a broken accountability system that punishes patients instead of the few bad doctors who cause most of the harm.</strong></p> <p>The TMB doesn’t check to see if a doctor moving from another state has a track record of maiming or even killing patients. Instead, they rely on physicians to self-report those cases. And, what if the doctor doesn’t tell them they have a history of medical abuse? Well, the board doesn’t know and the public is left in the dark. The agency could query the National Practitioner Data Bank which compiles information about doctors – including malpractice history – from state medical boards, but they don’t. Why not? Here’s how the folks at the <a href="http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/200444/publisher_ID/36/" target="_blank">Duluth News Tribune</a> reported it:</p> <blockquote><p>Konasiewicz received his license from the Texas Medical Board in 1997 and is required to renew it every two years, [TMB spokesperson Leigh] Hopper said. She said the board is supposed to review a doctor’s malpractice and disciplinary action when it renews a license, but she couldn’t say if that happened with Konasiewicz.</p> <p>“It’s actually possible that the board doesn’t know about all the medical malpractice cases in another state,” she said.</p> <p>All state medical boards have full access to the National Practitioner Data Bank, which lists malpractice cases and disciplinary actions taken against doctors. But Hopper said that because the Data Bank charges for queries, it would cost the state of Texas too much — she estimated $160,000 a year — to check on every doctor licensed in the state.</p> <p>“We might query it as part of an investigation, but it won’t be a source to start an investigation,” Hopper said.</p> <p>The ultimate responsibility of disclosing malpractice cases is on the doctor, Hopper said.</p> <p>“If the doctor doesn’t want to tell us and is not truthful when he renews his license, then we’re not going to find out about it, either,” she said.</p></blockquote> <p>Evidently, the safety of Texas patients is worth something less than $160,000.</p> <p>Even though officials at the TMB are now aware of Konasiewicz’s dangerous track record, they have <a href="http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/201713/publisher_ID/36/" target="_blank">taken no action to strip, suspend, or even restrict his license to practice here</a>. However, officials in Minnesota and Wisconsin have acted to <a href="http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/205380/publisher_ID/36/" target="_blank">restrict his license</a>.</p> <p>So, doctors with a history of harm – like Stefan Konasiewicz – get a two-fer in Texas: (1) they get to erase the harm they’ve caused in the past because of lax oversight, and (2) they avoid accountability for harm they cause in the future. If you are a doctor with a penchant for committing malpractice, wouldn’t you move to Texas too?</p></div></blockquote><div class="entry"><p></p> </div>Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-61841202766677780422011-06-27T10:08:00.002-05:002011-06-27T10:19:18.147-05:00Going to Hospital in July Could Kill You!Just a note to pass along for the upcoming weekend as we celebrate July 4th--BE SAFE and avoid the hospital! <br /><br />A recent study published by the Journal of General Internal Medicine reported a 10 percent spike in teaching hospital deaths during the month of July due to medical errors. <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/22/why-you-should-never-go-to-the-hospital-in-july/">CNN reports</a> on the effect--here's an excerpt:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Typically, medical students graduate in June and begin their first year of residency training — internship — in July. This group of eager new interns invades the hospital to learn, care for patients, and make medical decisions. One problem. They don’t know what they’re doing.</p> <p><span id="more-24613"></span>Like most interns, I arrived with four years of medical school under my belt, an M.D. after my name, and virtually no practical knowledge of medicine. Although I wore the long white coat of a doctor, I kept my pockets packed with condensed medical manuals that we called our “peripheral brains” to make up for the lack of knowledge held in my actual brain. Thank God for these manuals. Otherwise I would have been part of “The July Effect.”</p></blockquote><p></p>Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-69695729855531356872011-06-03T09:31:00.002-05:002011-06-03T09:34:45.332-05:00Texas's Medicare Spending Has Gone UP Since Tort ReformTort reformers and Gov. Perry tout the success of Texas's medical malpractice tort reform as a cost control measure. But, <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/meme-busting-tort-reform--cost-control/2011/06/02/AGpb0DHH_blog.html#pagebreak">this article</a> from the Washington Post shows that Texas spending on Medicare has actually gone up since 2003:<br /><blockquote>For instance, we could look at Texas, where non-economic damages on malpractice lawsuits were capped at $250,000 about eight years ago. You might remember when <a target="_blank" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110504328.html">Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich</a> said: <blockquote>Texas, for example, has adopted approaches to controlling health-care costs while improving choice, advancing quality of care and expanding coverage. Consider the successful 2003 tort reform.</blockquote> <p>So what happened to costs of care after that law was put in place? Public Citizen <a target="_blank" href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/Texas_Liability_Limits.pdf">analyzed just that (pdf)</a> using data from the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.dartmouthatlas.org/tools/downloads.aspx">Selected Medicare Reimbursement Measures</a>):</p> <p> <span class="imgfull"><img src="http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/ezra-klein/StandingArt/Reimbursements-per-enrollee.jpg?uuid=qWXzOI0ZEeCJxt5ltTFohg" width="454" align="bottom" border="0" /><br /><span class="blog_caption"></span></span> </p> <p>Texas is blue, the nation is red, and the law went into place at the dotted line. If anything, Texas’s Medicare spending seems to have gone up faster than the nation’s since 2003. Hardly a persuasive argument for tort reform = cost control.</p></blockquote><p></p>And this is what Gov. Perry wants to share with the rest of the country by being the next President???Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-85339395462971849022011-05-19T09:18:00.000-05:002011-05-19T09:19:21.424-05:00Avandia-Being Pulled from Pharmacies by FDAThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that it would restrict access to GlaxoSmithKline PLC's diabetes drug Avandia and pull it from retail pharmacies because of the drug's link to increased risks of heart attack and stroke.<br /><br />After Nov. 18, Avandia will <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/medical/heartdisease/story/2011/05/Diabetes-drug-Avandia-to-be-pulled-from-retail-shelves/47316450/1">no longer be available at pharmacies</a>, and doctors and patients will need to enroll in an FDA program in order to prescribe and receive the medicine, according to the agency.Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-61707900911483136132011-05-10T09:14:00.002-05:002011-05-10T09:17:37.703-05:00Call Your Senator Now: Loser Pays is really Winner PaysThe Texas House just passed the "Loser Pays" bill without any debate. In reality, a "winner" in a lawsuit could end up owing the "loser" money! We can stop this now if you contact your Texas Senator and give him or her this example courtesy of my colleague <a href="http://www.waldmanfirm.com/">Steve Waldman</a>:<br /><blockquote><br /><div style="font-weight: bold; font-family: times new roman;"> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">The <strong>"Loser Pays"</strong> bill that was just ramrodded through the Texas House, without debate, <strong>should be called "Winner Pays."</strong> If this bill becomes law, <strong>the winner of the lawsuit may have to pay the loser's attorney's fees. </strong>There is<strong> no cap on the amount the winner has to pay</strong>. A plaintiff - and this includes a small business - can <strong>win a lawsuit and go bankrupt</strong>. <strong>The following scenario can actually happen:</strong> </span></span></p> <p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"><span style="">1.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">Joe's Lawn Service ("Mom and Pop" small business) buys 10 Hodna (company name changed to protect...) tractors at a cost of $100,000.</span></span></p> <p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"><span style="">2.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">The tractors do not work, costing Joe to lose most of his landscape business.</span></span></p> <p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"><span style="">3.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">Joe sues Hodna for the $100,000 cost of the tractors plus $50,000 in lost profits.</span></span></p> <p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"><span style="">4.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">Hodna offers Joe $80,000 to settle. Joe turns it down because he has lost $150,000. </span></span></p> <p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"><span style="">5.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">Joe goes to trial and wins $60,000.</span></span></strong></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"> The jury finds Joe had 40% of the use of the tractors, and the judge disallows Joe's lost profits claim on a technicality. </span></span></p> <p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"><span style="">6.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">Because Joe won less than 80% of Hodna's offer, he has to pay Hodna's attorney's fees and litigation expenses. </span></span></p> <p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"><span style="">7.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">Hodna's lawfirm has assigned one senior partner ($750/hour), one junior partner ($450/hour), two associates ($250/hour each) and a three paralegals ($100/hour each) to defend the case, and has run up $350,000 in legal fees and litigation costs.</span></span></p> <p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"><span style="">8.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">Joe is awarded $60,000, less Hodna's $350,000 in legal fees. In other words, <strong>Joe has won his lawsuit but owes Hodna $290,000</strong>!</span></span></p> <p style="text-indent: -0.25in; margin-left: 0.5in;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"><span style="">9.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">Joe files for bankruptcy.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">This can really happen.</span></span></strong></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"> The current Offer of Settlement rule, Civil Practice Code Section 42.004, <strong>subsections (d) and (g) limit the shifting of fees to a reduction of the plaintiff's damage award. </strong>Subsections (d) and (g) are<strong> repealed by HB 274 - </strong>making the amount of fees the winner has to pay the loser<strong> unlimited. Under HB 274, a plaintiff can win his lawsuit and end up financially destroyed.</strong></span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">The "tort reformers" seek to limit lawsuits for personal injuries and wrongful death. <strong>How do they explain this result to small business owners?</strong> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">The moral of the story being told by the advocates of this bill is this: <strong> </strong></span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">If you have a claim against a big corporation, take whatever they offer, because if you dare to take them to a jury, you risk your economic life.</span></span></strong></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"></span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">Call and email your state senator. Repealing CPRC 42.004 (d) and (g) turns "loser pays" into "winner pays." Tell your senator to oppose the repeal of CPRC 42.004 (d) and (g)! </span></span></strong></span><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"></span></span></p></div> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:78%;color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;">"Winner Pays" is unfair for Texans!</span></span></strong></span></p></blockquote><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; font-weight: bold; font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><span style="color:#002060;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 32, 96); font-size: 14pt;"></span></span></strong></span></p>Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-20855990007277619002011-04-25T14:18:00.002-05:002011-04-25T14:26:26.281-05:00Supreme Court May Hear Military Med Mal ChallengeThere is <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQ8ELLv0aAz6sJHqzLO13RNI-fVg?docId=ab0f55f8d2384ac6a3f51fc2e565512f">hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case</a> that could allow military personnel who are victims of medical malpractice to sue military medical providers.<br /><br />This is a sad and horrible case in which Air Force Staff Sgt. Dean Patrick Witt was hospitalized in 2003 for what should have been a routine appendectomy at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif. After surgery, a nurse anesthetist inserted a breathing tube into his esophagus instead of his trachea or airway, depriving his brain of oxygen. Witt, of Oroville, Calif., died after his family removed him from life support three months later.<br /><br />Current law protects the military and prevents Staff Sgt. Witt's family from receiving any justice for this malpractice. Veterans, military families and others who oppose the decades-old law, the <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://hamptonroads.com/2009/05/service-members-have-little-recourse-against-malpractice">Feres Doctrine</a>, that shields military medical personnel from malpractice lawsuits are rallying around a case they consider the best chance in a generation to change the protection.<br /><blockquote><br />"We labored on this for a long, long time, and we decided that the right thing to do here was to protect the rights of other people who go into the military and are signing away their rights to get good health care in the military system," said Witt's brother-in-law, Carlos Lopez, of Salt Lake City. "So we're hoping, we're praying, that his case could be the one that changes everything."</blockquote>Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-2176103580930216632011-04-13T09:59:00.003-05:002011-04-13T10:01:30.236-05:00Speak Up--Whether it's a Doctor or a Cab Driver!I thought <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/opinion/13dowd.html?src=recg">this piece</a><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>by Maureen Dowd was very sobering and very funny. We are so afraid to speak up sometimes that it costs us our lives:<br /><p> </p><blockquote><p>When my brother went into the hospital with pneumonia, he quickly contracted four other infections in the intensive care unit. </p><p> Anguished, I asked a young doctor why this was happening. Wearing a white lab coat and blue tie, he did a show-and-tell. He leaned over Michael and let his tie brush my sedated brother’s hospital gown. </p><p> “It could be anything,” he said. “It could be my tie spreading germs.” </p><p> I was dumbfounded. “Then why do you wear a tie?” I asked. He shrugged and left for rounds. </p></blockquote><p> </p>Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-9744600954434759242011-04-05T11:27:00.002-05:002011-04-05T11:36:29.411-05:006 Famous Frivolous Lawsuits that are B.S.<p class="MsoNormal"><i style=""><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; font-size: 13pt;">"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth -- persistent, persuasive, unrealistic."</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; font-size: 13pt;"> John F. Kennedy</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_19150_6-famous-frivolous-lawsuit-stories-that-are-total-b.s..html">Here is a site </a>that dispels many of the email forwards and that "I heard that" stories about lawsuits. Unfortunately, the truth often times is merely something that is repeated over and over again. <br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; font-size: 13pt;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span></p>Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35065114.post-62452530359779971682011-03-18T16:44:00.003-05:002011-03-18T16:46:45.474-05:00The Sixth Biggest Killer in AmericaWhat is the sixth biggest killer in America? Car wrecks? Cancer? Heart attacks? No, it's medical errors...<br /><br /><blockquote>Preventable medical errors kill and seriously injure hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. Any discussion of medical negligence that does not involve preventable medical errors ignores this fundamental problem. And while some interested parties would prefer to focus on doctors’ insurance premiums, health care costs, or alternative compensation systems—anything other than the negligence itself—reducing medical errors is the best way to address all the related problems. Preventing medical errors will lower health care costs, reduce doctors’ insurance premiums, and protect the health and well-being of patients. </blockquote><br /><br />Justice.org has <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.justice.org/cps/rde/xchg/justice/hs.xsl/8677.htm">the full story</a>.Linda Laurent Thomas and Michelle Wanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02644258531170032084noreply@blogger.com0