Here are the 28 medical events that the National Quality Forum says should never occur: Surgical Events Surgery performed on the wrong body part Surgery performed on the wrong patient Wrong surgical procedure on a patient Retention of a foreign object in a patient after surgery or other procedure Intraoperative…
These are not the words of some crazy plaintiff’s lawyer. These are the words of a doctor. Dr. Amy Tuteur at Harvard. An excerpt: "If I had been angry about what happened to the patient, I was even angrier after learning of the deception. The hospital had deliberately lied to…
From the March 30, 2009 edition of Courtoons.
It was four years ago today that I wrote about the ability of Senator Bill Frist to make a medical diagnosis via videotape. Here is my follow-up post from June 16, 2005, written after the release of Ms. Schiavo’s autopsy. Did Dr. Frist’s videotape diagnosis cost him a shot at the…
We have some preliminary data on the number of medical malpractice case filings in certain counties since the October 1, 2009 effective date of the medical malpractice notice and certificate of good faith statutes. One new statute requires that actual notice be given to defendants in med mal cases before a lawsuit is filed. …
An article by Jeff Woods at Nashville Scene: The nursing home industry is back at the legislature this session demanding a law to cap its liability in Tennessee courts for neglecting and abusing residents. That’s even though a legislative study committee, which met once after last year’s bill failed,…
Here is the most recent version of the practice guidelines for obstetric anesthesia as prepared by a task force of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
I heard a rumor that the appeal in Hill v. NHC Healthcare/Nashville,LLC, M2005-01818-COA-R30-CV, (Tenn. Ct. App. April 30, 2008) (Rule 11 granted Aug. 25, 2008) has been dismissed. This important opinion held that the defendant nursing home’s arbitration clause was unconscionable as a matter of law. The hope was that this…
The February 18, 2009 edition of The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about fires in the operating room, which happen approximately 650 times per year in the United States. A sample: "Because each member of the [surgical] team may be focusing on his own role in a procedure,…
State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company’s Winter 2008-09 quarterly newsletter, Risk Points, has an interesting article discussing the diagnosis of appendicitis. This illness occurs in 250,000 people in the United States every year, and the mortality rate increases 500% if the appendix ruptures. A sample from the article: "Thus clinicians should focus on…