Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Tagged with medical malpractice

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Our Medical Malpractice Attorneys Jeffrey Bloom and Ben Rubinowitz represented the family  of Joan Rivers after she died during a routine endoscopy at a Manhattan surgery center. Sadly many other patients have died following complications or surgical errors at this type of center as many States still do not have regulations that may prevent them. For example in most of the country there is no law that prohibits a doctor who was laid off by a hospital for misconduct to open a surgery center.

A recent USA TODAY NETWORK and Kaiser Health News investigation found that a surgery center in Arkansas 3 people died during colonoscopy procedures in 15 weeks and none of them were reported to an oversight authority. Patients coming for procedures were obviously not aware of these deaths either. This must change.

The lack of oversight continues to kill patients at surgery centers

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Among all the States in the US, New York State has the highest rate of mothers injured while giving birth.  Many of these injuries are the direct result of hospital negligence and medical malpractice. A recent investigation by USA Today shows that not only in New York but all over America negligent medical workers skip basic safety practices that have proven to be life savers for mothers.

Weighing blood pads to track dangerous hemorrhages as well as controlling blood pressure and if necessary immediately providing medication to prevent strokes are basic procedures that protect a mother about to give birth. However in the US many nurses, doctors and hospitals continue to ignore them. As a result while in most developed countries the rate of maternal deaths and injuries dropped drastically over the last decades, it rose sharply in the US.

maternal deaths in developed countries
Excepted for California where safe practices have been implemented, hospitals in other Sates continue to ignore basic safety practices.  As a result, every day in the US, 2 mothers die from complications related to delivery. Many of them bleed to death because doctors and nurses don’t bother to quantify blood losses. Many others die from stroke because the hospital staff didn’t track their blood pressure or didn’t provide blood pressure medication on time. Most of these deaths are preventable. Experts estimate that 93% of the deaths related to bleeding could be avoided by quantifying blood loss and 60% of the deaths related to blood pressure disorder could be prevented simply by proprely monitoring blood pressure.

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Bud FrazierBud Frazier is a surgeon who is recognized worldwide for his role in the development of mechanical heart pumps and  artificial hearts. Devices that are credited Today with extending the lives of thousands of people worldwide each year were tested at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center and its research partner, the Texas Heart Institute. However the doctor and his research team committed serious medical malpractice to develop the devices. According to a new investigation released by ProPublica, the surgeon is accused of violating federal research rules and ethical guidelines.

Highly unethical research leading to preventable deaths

Frazier is accused of implementing experimental heart pumps in patients who didn’t meet the criteria to be included in clinical trials.  Also, Frazier used his experimental pumps on patients who could have been treated with more proven  treatments. The surgeon tried to discourage the publication of research that showed that the first group of patients that were implanted with his device suffered from a high rate of strokes. Frazier never disclosed consulting fees and research grants that he received from the companies that made the pumps that he tested. According to the testimony of a nurse, Frazier also allowed an unlicensed researcher to treat heart failures.

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A very well organized network of profiteer personal injury law firms, doctors, marketers and finance executives have teamed up together to try to make profit out of women who previously had a vaginal mesh surgery by leading them into believing something is wrong with their implant. A recent article in the New York Time looks at the cases of multiple women who previously had a vaginal mesh implant and were contacted by unidentified callers lying to them and pretending that their implants were defective to lure them into expensive, dangerous and unnecessary surgery.

Hired and trained by a marketing company, the callers usually know most of the medical history of the women that they were calling. Victims of these calls are often told that if they don’t undergo surgery to remove the mesh they might die. The caller then set the woman up with:

  • the law firm that initially hired the marketing company
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More than twenty years ago, a medication was developed that can save lives and reduce the disabling impacts of a stroke. Known as tissue plasminogen activator (or “T.P.A.”), this medication is now considered the gold standard for the treatment of ischemic strokes by the American Stroke Association.

Generally speaking, there are two types of strokes that can occur—ischemic stroke or hemorrhagic stroke. An ischemic stroke occurs when there is an obstruction to one of the vessels that supplies blood to the brain. A hemorrhagic stroke occurs when a blood vessel ruptures and bleeds into the area surrounding the brain. T.P.A. can only be used to treat ischemic strokes. When timely used to treat an ischemic stroke, it can be a brain-saving treatment.

RECENT STUDIES SHOW TPA CAN PREVENT BRAIN INJURY AFTER A STROKE BUT SKEPTICS SAY TPA IS DANGEROUS

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New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer Jeffrey BloomNew York Medical Malpractice Lawyer Ben RubinowitzOur partner,  New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer Jeffrey Bloom will be chairing the “Anatomy & Medicine for Lawyers” program offered by the New York State Bar Association Thursday March 29th from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm at the CFA Society, 1540 Broadway #1010 in New York City. The program will also be webcasted live.

During the program Jeffrey will talk about preparing a medical malpractice case. He will discuss cases from both the plaintiff and defense perspectives. Our managing partner, Ben Rubinowitz will also attend the program as a speaker. He will lecture, about orthopedic and spinal injuries. He will be joined by Dr James Naidich, a radiologist in discussing these types of injuries.

This unique program will familiarize medical malpractice attorneys and personal injury attorneys (both plaintiff and defense) as well as workers’ compensation attorneys with the medical concepts and terminology necessary to

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surgery-centerTwo recent articles discuss the increased risks of medical practice at surgery centers as they take on increasingly risky surgeries.

A global investigation by Christina Jewett from Kaiser Health News and Mark Alesia from USA Today reveals that since 2013, 260 people died of complications after they went for an in-and-out procedure at a surgery center in America.

Another investigation led by Lindy Washburn from NorthJersey.com found that more than 12,000 serious cases of personal  injury including 52 deaths have occurred in New Jersey surgery centers between September 2008 and September 2017. Additionally Washburn also found out that these numbers were only reflecting a partial reality as among the 298 surgery centers installed in New Jersey only half of them have to report to NJ’s Patient Safety Reporting System. In New Jersey surgical centers with only one room don’t need to report their patient safety data. Previous cases of medmal indicate that some victims died in the past but exact numbers are nowhere to be found. In her article Washburn describes several cases including the one of  Rekhaben Shah, a 67 year old woman who went to one of these centers for a routine colonoscopy and died two days later. A new law was just passed that will soon require all New Jersey surgical centers to report patients safety data.

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Urological Association Meeting ProgrammOur managing partner, New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer Ben Rubinowitz was invited by the New York Section of the American Urological Association Education & Research to participate in their 115th annual meeting. This meeting took place in Havana, Cuba, from November 5th to November 11th. During the meeting participants attended scientific sessions covering:

  • Kidney Cancer
  • Female Urology/Voiding Dysfunction
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Top 10 Health Technology HazardsMedical technology advancements globally increase quality and length of life however they don’t come without risks and hazards. New health technologies if not proprely used can also hurt patients and lead to medical malpractice. Every year the ECRI Institute publishes a list of the top 10 Health Technology Hazards. The 2018 report just came out.  Here are the 10 most important safety issues in Health Technology for 2018:

  1. Cyber security attacks

    The health care sector is the second most attacked sector by ransomewares after the financial sector. Health information not only contain patient health information but also crucial financial information such as social security numbers. Unfortunately many healthcare organizations are extremely vulnerable.  Their computers operating systems are often outdated and they are not prepared to face criminals holding patient’s information hostage and expecting payout in exchange. Last month a sophisticated group of hackers operating under the name “Dark Overlord”stole pictures from a high profile London plastic surgeon that included pictures of in-progress genitalia and breast enhancement of patients. Patients include celebrities and members of the royal family. The hackers also attacked numerous medical centers in the US last year.

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medical procedureIn a recent study,  a majority of doctors said they overtreat patients because they fear medical malpractice lawsuits. Not only is this fear exaggerated but also doctors seem to use it as a good excuse to perform unnecessary procedures that are very profitable to them.  For example angioplasty procedures to implant heart stents in patients are among the most overused interventions. Many procedures not only put patients at risk unnecessarily but inflate the nation’s medical bill.

In the study “Overtreatment in the United States” published in PLOS One yesterday, Heather Lyu from the Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Tim Xu, Daniel Brotman, Brandan Mayer-Blackwell, Michol Cooper, Michael Daniel and Elizabeth C. Wick from the Department of Surgery and the Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America,  Vikas Saini and Shannon Brownlee from The Lown Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America and Martin A. Makary from the Department of Surgery and the Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America, Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America surveyed 2,106 physicians about over treatment. The survey found that according to physicians themselves,  20% of  all medical care provided to patients are unnecessary.  Physicians indicated that they felt 25% of tests, 22% of prescription medications and 11% of procedures were not needed. 85% of doctors  said they were over treating for fear of medical malpractice and 59% because they were pressured by their patients. However 70.8% of them recognize that when they over treat patients, physicians tend to perform unnecessary procedures that are the most profitable to them. Over treatment can cause additional and unnecessary harm to patients  and obviously unnecessary financial burden to patients and to insurance companies. Spine surgery, operations done to narrow blood vessels in the leg or stent procedures are all profitable procedures that are the most often found unnecessary for the patient.

Picture: courtesy of Wikipedia

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