Medical Malpractice

• Doctors require arbitration agreements

  Donald Caminiti | April 08, 2008 9:18 PM | 0 CommentsBergen County, NJ

  An increasing number of Florida doctors are requiring patients to sign binding arbitration agreements. In fact, doctors and insurance companies throughout the country...

• Awake during anesthesia

  Donald Caminiti | March 13, 2008 2:44 PM | 0 CommentsBergen County, NJ

  The Anesthesia Awareness Campaign, Inc. ("AAC")is a non-profit organization founded in 1998 that isdedicated to helping victims, providing education,and working to prevent anesthesia awareness.Anesthesia awareness, also called intraoperativeawareness or conscious paralysis, is the phenomenonof being mentally alert while supposedly under fullgeneral anesthesia. In some instances, victims areable...

• Reporting Medical Errors

  Karen Gatlin | March 06, 2008 1:39 PM | 0 CommentsBergen County, NJ

  Ninety percent of New Jersey residents would like hospitals to report adverse incidents and medical errors, such as patient falls and hospital acquired infections, to the public. One fifth of state residents have a family member who has experienced a preventable medical error, and between 44,000 and 98,000 U.S. citizens die yearly from preventable medical errors. Hospitals do supply data as to...

• Pain and Suffering Caps on lawsuits are unfair

  Donald Caminiti | February 26, 2008 2:08 PM | 0 CommentsBergen County, NJ

  Former Dallas Cowboy Ron Springs, who has been in a coma since the fall after surgery to remove a cyst, is one of 11 plaintiffs challenging Texas' medical malpractice cap in a lawsuit filed Monday.The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall, challenges the 2003 Medical Malpractice and Tort Reform Act, which limits awards in Texas. The lawsuit asks...

• Women and Heart Disease

  Karen Gatlin | February 19, 2008 11:02 AM | 0 CommentsBergen County, NJ

  While there are classic symptoms of myocardial infarction (heart attack), such as chest pain, sweating, shortness of breath. and pain radiating to the left arm, women often show atypical symptoms such as nausea, light-headedness, anxiety, weakness/fatigue, pain between the shoulder blades and heartburn. Physicians must be alert for these symptoms. An EKG is essential to rule out heart attack...

• Prednisone and Fractures

  Karen Gatlin | January 28, 2008 12:00 PM | 0 CommentsBergen County, NJ

  Corticosteroids such as Prednisone are used in inflammatory conditions for their anti-inflammatory effects. When used properly, these drugs save lives and avert injury to bodily organs. They have a rapid onset of action, and profoundly affect many parts of the immune system as well as most other body systems. Corticosteroids are used to treat a variety of conditions such as vasculitis;...

• NJ Patient Safety Report

  Donald Caminiti | January 18, 2008 10:47 AM | 0 CommentsBergen County, NJ

  In the first two years of New Jersey's Patient Safety Initiative, hospitals worked with the Department of Health and Senior Services to analyze more than 800 serious patient safety events and make comprehensive changes to prevent such errors from recurring, Health and Senior Services Commissioner Heather Howard, J.D., announced today. Nearly all hospitals reported adverse events in 2005 or...

• Doctors fail to report medical errors

  Donald Caminiti | January 16, 2008 4:07 PM | 0 CommentsBergen County, NJ

  Most doctors agree that medical errors should be reported to their hospitals, but a significant number admit they don't always report their own, a University of Iowa study shows.Researchers surveyed 338 physicians at three unidentified teaching hospitals around the country. Seventeen percent of the doctors admitted anonymously that they had failed to report minor errors, defined as mistakes that...

• Pointless procedural hoops on lawsuits

  Donald Caminiti | January 02, 2008 2:33 PM | 0 CommentsBergen County, NJ

  The Charleston Daily Mail recently reported on made up absurd courtroom situations in an effort to pass so called medical malpractice lawsuit reform legislation. State Supreme Court Justice Larry Starcher was qoted in a dissent as having stated:"I dissent to express my hope that, in the future, the court or the Legislature will recognize the absurd and unconstitutional effects of the (reform)...

• Preventing preventable infections

  Donald Caminiti | December 12, 2007 11:52 AM | 0 CommentsBergen County, NJ

  Drug-resistant infections are headline news lately, especially the illnesses and deaths caused by tough and evolving bPreventing MRSA Infections and Deaths Becomes Bigger Priority The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) came right out and said it: MRSA infections, primarily those related to health care, are a "major public health problem." Upfront in its report in the...