Medical Malpractice

• Website to Discouarage Caring for MedMal Victims

  Ben Glass | July 25, 2006 4:28 PM | 0 CommentsNorthern Virginia, VA

  What will they think of next? Here is a website that will publish, in Florida (for now) the names of patients who will have filed, but "not prevailed" in a medical malpractice lawsuit. Under the guise of "this is news" this site is apparently designed to discourage doctors from accepting these patients for care.But wait... there's more....You can have your name listed there even if you sued the...

• Medication Errors Lead to Death and Injury

  Ben Glass | July 21, 2006 5:57 AM | 0 CommentsNorthern Virginia, VA

  One of the most frequent calls we get at our office involves medication errors, usually in a hospital setting. Fortunately, most errors are caught before any permanent harm is done. A new report from the Institute of Medicine suggests that the problem may be even more widespread than previously imagined.The report said that at least 1.5 million people are sickened, injured or killed each year...

• Low Ranking for Virginia Hospitals

  Ben Glass | June 23, 2006 7:37 AM | 0 CommentsNorthern Virginia, VA

  My friend, Roanoke medical malpractice attorney Jeff Krasnow, has astutely pointed out a new report that shows that Virginia's hospitals rank low on a national scale. Jeff says in his blog, Roanoke Personal Injury Lawyer:One very troubling aspect of the new Health Grade studies which reports 250,000 Medicare patients killed by preventable medical mistakes during the three years, is the...

• Large Massachusets Verdict for Breast Surgery

  Ben Glass | June 19, 2006 3:20 PM | 0 CommentsNorthern Virginia, VA

  According to wire reports from the Boston Globe a jury has just awarded a woman $3.5 million for a failed breast reduction surgery. Apparently the woman lost both breasts to a failed blood supply after the surgeon failed to check to see how a prior breast reduction therapy had been performed many years ago. ``I think the jury recognized the effect of the trauma and the emotional injury," said...

• Is Sexual Assault Medical Malpractice?

  Ben Glass | June 19, 2006 7:11 AM | 0 CommentsNorthern Virginia, VA

  In a watershed decision for Virginia, the Supreme Court has ruled that when a patient claims that she was sexually assaulted at a nursing home, the nursing home may not hide behind Virginia's medical malpractice laws and it's artificial limits and restrictive rules.Woodbine Nursing home in Alexandria, Virginia was sued by the estate of a resident. The resident, now deceased, was sexually...

• What Experts Must Say

  Ben Glass | June 19, 2006 5:06 AM | 1 CommentNorthern Virginia, VA

  From time to time you see a debate about what "magic words" medical experts must use when testifying. The Supreme Court of Virginia just ruled on this issue in a plastic surgery medical malpractice case involving a botched "tummy tuck." While noting that the expert had not used the right "magic words," the Court also noted that the defendant plastic surgeon's lawyers had not made a timely...

• Doctor Can't Wait For Expert To Leave to Make Objection

  Ben Glass | June 11, 2006 7:57 AM | 0 CommentsNorthern Virginia, VA

  Settling a long-running debate about the proper form of a question put to an expert, the Supreme Court of Virginia has ruled that medical malpractice experts must state opinions "within a reasonable degree of medical probability." However, a lawyer's failure to make a timely objection to an improperly phrased question means that objection is waived. The doctor loses his appeal. Cosmetic plastic...

• Congress Not Fooled by Reformers' Cry

  Ben Glass | May 09, 2006 10:06 AM | 0 CommentsNorthern Virginia, VA

  Two proposed federal medical malpractice bills got hammered (again) in Congress yesterday. The arguments of those beholden to the insurance industry are getting tired. Nothing new. Most folks see through their smoke. What is almost laughable is the position taken by Pennysvlania's Senator Santorum. What a hypocrite this guy is.(I'll have to give him credit, though, for taking a stand even when...

• Roanoke Neurosurgeons Critical of Judge

  Ben Glass | May 08, 2006 12:36 AM | 0 CommentsNorthern Virginia, VA

  While going through some of my archives this weekend in preparation for a talk I am giving soon, I ran across this letter that a couple of Roanoke, Virginia neurosurgeons had sent to a local judge following a verdict in a Roanoke medical malpractice case. It shows the type of pressure that judges are under. You can read the letter from the malpractice case and draw your own conclusions, but here...

• Jury Should Not Have Been Allowed to Reduce Verdict

  Ben Glass | April 24, 2006 9:48 AM | 0 CommentsNorthern Virginia, VA

  A Suffolk jury should not have been told that it could reduce a medical malpractice victim's verdict because of his choice of which hospital to go to following a nurse's bad medical advice, according to the Supreme Court of Virginia. In the lawsuit, Lawrence J. Monahan sought recovery from Obici Medical Management Services, Inc. for its nurse's bad advice following signs and symptoms of an...