D.C. Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Gabriel Assaad : Assaad Law, PLLC: D.C. Injury Law Journal

 Everyone expects their doctor to be an expert in their field and to solve the medical problems they bring for treatment.  At least, that was common several decades ago.   Times have changed, and patients are quicker to blame a doctor when they don’t get the result they expect from a health care provider.  The truth is, while most physicians are experts who do provide a high quality of care, there are times when they make mistakes, and those mistakes can be painful and even deadly.

Medical Malpractice Law

Anyone who is injured by the mistake of a health care provider has the right to file suit to obtain compensation for his or her additional medical costs as well as pain and suffering.  The problem is, these cases are often difficult to prove.  In addition, legislators in some states have put limits, or caps on the compensation victims can be awarded in lawsuits.  Experienced personal injury lawyers can help a victim learn if their doctor is negligent in their injuries based on several parameters.

Proving a Doctors Liability for a Medical Injury

A doctor can be proved guilty of medical malpractice if they perform a negligent act or fail to perform a necessary act that results in damage or harm to a patient.  These negligent acts can occur in such areas as

·         A mistake in a diagnosis

·         An error in treatment

·         Failure to provide timely treatment

·         Failure to provide appropriate follow-up to a patient

·         Inappropriate prescriptions ordered to treat a patient

The victim must be able to prove that their physician’s treatment deviated from the generally accepted standards of treatment in that field or for that illness.  One of the requirements that most states have added to medical malpractice lawsuits is that the lawyer obtain a certificate of merit from an established expert in the medical field in question before proceeding with the lawsuit.  And in fact, medical experts are often used throughout a medical malpractice suit to prove that the defendant acted negligently in their treatment of the plaintiff.

In some cases, a victim may be unable to prove exactly how a health care provider acted negligently, causing the injury.  However, if the injury is obviously one that would not have occurred without someone’s negligence, a principle called "res ipsa loquitur," it becomes the defendant’s responsibility to prove that they were not negligent, rather than the plaintiff’s responsibility to prove that they were.

Who Is Responsible?

There are a number of possible defendants to be considered in a case of medical malpractice, especially if it is in relationship to a serious illness or injury.  When multiple doctors and nurses are involved, plus hospital care, tests, and prescriptions, it can be much more difficult to determine who is negligent in a medical malpractice lawsuit.  Some of those who can be found negligent include, among others,

·         Physicians

·         Hospitals

·         Anesthesiologists

·         Nurses

·         Pharmaceutical companies

It takes expert investigators to sift through the evidence and determine whom has liability for the injuries sustained by the victim. 

Malpractice Cases and Compensation

Medical malpractice cases are difficult to prove.  In addition, while the pain and costs involved in such injuries are extensive, the emotional toll is high, as well.  That makes it that much more important to have a skilled medical malpractice attorney who can look at a case with legal eyes rather than emotional eyes.  They can tell the victim if they have a case, and how that case should be pursued in order to obtain the compensation they deserve.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

This week Congress reconvenes in Washington, D.C. and health care reform will be front and center. This a serious concern that medical malpractice reform will be used as a bargaining chip by the Democrats and the Obama Administration in order to get a Health Care Reform bill passed.  

President Obama will be addressing the nation this evening and is expected to set forth what he wants in a health care bill.   We must keep medical malpractice reform out of the Healthcare Bill. Why? Because....

·         Medical malpractice should not be a bargaining chip. Health care reform is about making sure that every American has access to quality, low-cost health care, not about limiting the legal rights of innocent patients harmed by medical negligence.

·         Taking away patient rights does not improve the quality of our health care system or produce cost savings. Forty-eight states have already enacted medical malpractice reform measures. Yet these legal restrictions have done nothing to improve our health care system, reduce costs, or help people harmed by medical negligence.

·         Medical malpractice is about real people with real injuries. The Institute of Medicine estimates that 98,000 people die each year in the US from preventable medical errors (the 6th leading cause of death in America).

·         Defensive medicine is a myth. Both the GAO and CBO question the prevalence of defensive medicine, and have detailed how tampering with the legal system will save practically no money. Some so-called defensive medicine may be motivated more by profit and less by liability concerns.

One thing is clear - we must ALL be a part of the fight to keep medical malpractice reform out of the health care bill. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

A doctor in Maryland uses scare tactics to convince citizens that medical malpractice reform is necessary.  In an editorial in the Baltimore Sun, Dr. Hass wrote:

At a time when the nation's economy is slumping and the governor is proposing to mandate that Maryland hospitals and physicians provide more free care to lower-income families, it's ironic that the state House Judiciary Committee, led by trial lawyer Joseph F. Vallario Jr., is proposing legislation to roll back the reforms in the state's medical malpractice insurance policies enacted in 2004 ("Attack of the trial lawyers," editorial, Feb. 17).

Such a rollback would ultimately result in higher malpractice insurance rates for doctors and hospitals, higher health care costs for consumers, higher health insurance premiums for businesses and, of course, higher incomes for well-heeled trial lawyers.

Perhaps the "attack" of these lawyers on physicians and hospitals will only abate when enough doctors have left Maryland and enough hospitals have closed that they no longer have anyone left to sue.

There is numerous articles that have discredited the fallacy that medical malpractice lawsuits cause higher medical malpractice premiums, health care costs to consumers, and an exodus of doctors from sates.  In fact, look at California, they have had medical malpractice caps for over 20 years and there is no change compared to other states that have not passed tort reform.

In DC, there are no caps.  The last time I checked, there are no shortage of doctors or exodus.  In fact, the DC Metro area is overly saturated with physicians to the point where physicians' salaries are less here than many other parts of the country for a lack of demand.  With respect to higher premiums, if you look at the data, medical malpractice cases account for less than 1% of the health care costs in the country. 

The author's use of attack is indicative of the lack of facts to support the position taken by thus doctor.  This doctor should look at the insurance companies as for the cause of higher premiums an look at the insurance companies books before he blindly blames the "attacking" lawyer.

I suggest to this doctor or anyone who has the same viewpoint to pray that no one in their family is on  the receiving end of being malpracticed upon.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The West Virginia Record wrote on January 9, 2009 a wonderful article about former Justice Larry Starcher overviewing his last days of his term and his fight to the end to protect the rights of individuals, including the areas of medical malpractice.

CHARLESTON - To the end, the old West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals worked hard at making decisions. And former Justice Larry Starcher worked hard at disagreeing.

Starcher filed seven dissents on Dec. 30, the last day of his 12-year term, all celebrating his conviction that judges should keep rewriting laws."

 One such dissent was a medical malpractice case which The Record summarized as follows:

 Forshey v. Jackson

Left-handed locksmith Paul Forshey developed carpal tunnel syndrome, a wrist injury. Physician Theodore Jackson performed surgery in 1995.

Forshey's pain continued and a knot formed under his thumb. Jackson set exploratory surgery but cancelled it four days ahead of time.

Jackson rescheduled it, but Forshey cancelled it four days ahead of time.

In 2005, Forshey injured his left index finger. An X-ray revealed a piece of knife blade.

In 2006, Forshey sued Jackson in Kanawha Circuit Court.

Jackson moved to dismiss, relying on state law that sets an absolute limit of ten years on a medical malpractice claim.

Forshey argued that the statute didn't start running in 1995. He argued that it started running in 1997, when Jackson cancelled the exploratory surgery.

Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey Walker dismissed the suit, and on Nov. 25 the Justices affirmed her.

Justice Robin Davis wrote that in order to beat the statute of limitations, Forshey had to show repetitious wrongful conduct.

"Merely establishing the continuation of the ill effects of an original wrongful act will not suffice," Davis wrote.

In dissent Starcher wrote, "The injury in this case wasn't just the scalpel blade left in the plaintiff's hand."

He wrote, "It was that the defendant doctor screwed up and committed malpractice by failing to properly diagnose the error in two years of trying."

He wrote that Walker should have let Forshey pursue the action, "which most likely would have resulted in a speedy settlement."

He wrote that "this Court will do whatever it takes to protect doctors and lawyers from malpractice claims -- no matter how meritorious those claims might be."
 

I believe the last line says it all!!!!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link