A doctor’s duty of care should not be affected by the type of health care insurance or benefits that a patient has. Yet according to a recent study, Medicaid surgical patients may fare worse than other surgery patients.
Conventional wisdom may assume that a brain injury in a newborn is most typically caused by oxygen deprivation during labor.
Last month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a disturbing figure: Around 75,000 patients die in hospitals each year from infections contracted in health care facilities.
Although readers may expect this medical malpractice blog to occasionally address medication errors, today’s entry highlights a different medication concern: prescription drug dependency among doctors, nurses and other medical staff.
CPLR §3101(a) requires, in pertinent part, “full disclosure of all matter material and necessary in the prosecution or defense of an action.” With regard to medical treatment received by a plaintiff in a lawsuit, this has been interpreted to mean that the injured plaintiff waives the physician-patient privilege with respect to his relevant prior medical history concerning those physical conditions which he affirmatively places in controversy. See Koump v. Smith, 25 NY2d 287, 303 NYS2d 858, 250 NE2d 857 (1969). However, a party does not waive the physician-patient privilege with respect to unrelated illnesses or injuries. In Romance v. Zavala, 98 AD3d 726, 950 NYS2d
New York is famed for its high rise skyline. Apart from its famous tall buildings, most New York buildings are high rises. The construction workers who build, maintain, demolish, and renovate these buildings are protected by Section 240 of the New York Labor Law, which is also called the Scaffolding Law. This law places the onus of construction workers who are working at an elevation on the contractors and owners of the building site, or other parties, but never on the construction worker themselves. According to this law any construction worker who is injured on the job when working at an elevation should be compensated
A woman goes to her doctor and complains about a lump in her breast.
The Dr. sends her for a mammogram.
A few days later, the Dr. calls to tell her not to worry, as it is “only a cyst”.
Readers of this medical malpractice blog may be familiar with some patient safety initiatives focusing on new programs under the Affordable Care Act. What readers may not realize, however, is that a majority of these and other patient safety improvement programs have been limited to inpatient hospital care.
A vitamin a day may not actually keep the doctor away, but there is benefit to certain preventative practices, such as screening tests. Unfortunately, patients may not realize that they may be at risk for certain conditions, and a doctor’s failure to advise a patient about recommended tests may allow conditions to go undiagnosed — until it is too late. In such cases, an injured patient or surviving loved one may need to talk with a medical malpractice attorney about holding doctors accountable for their potentially negligent care.
On April 17, 2014, the United States Food and Drug Administration (the “FDA”) issued a News Release in which it discouraged the use of laparoscopic power power morcellation for the removal of the uterus (i.e., a hysterectomy) or the removal of uterine fibroids (i.e., a myomectomy) in women because, according to the FDA’s research, the treatment can cause the spreading of certain cancers. If a woman that has a type of cancer known as a “uterine sarcoma” undergoes laparoscopic power power morcellation, the FDA has determined that the risk of spreading the cancer throughout the patient’s abdomen and pelvis is significantly elevated, and the chances
