The Debate on Cardiac Stent Safety
During the late summer and early autumn of 2006, the medical community began to express second thoughts about the safety of drug-coated cardiac stents, which have in recent years been given credit for reducing the frequency of complications arising from the use of a previous generation of stents. The publicity generated by the news media interested me in my professional role representing health care providers, and for personal reasons as well.
Electronic Health Records
While it's hardly the case that physicians are using electronic health records (EHR) in legion, it is the case that more than in previous times are implementing EHR technology in their practices. One result: A long-time-coming investment by physicians in technology to try to capture the practice and patient-care enhancements that futurists and other advocates of e-medicine in various forms have predicted.<br>Another result: Physicians and counsel representing them are being brought into the expanding scope of electronic discovery by confronting e-discovery while defending medical malpractice claims.
Application of the Frye Standard to Medical Expert Testimony
This article addresses a recent decision of a New York state appellate court concerning the admissibility of expert medical testimony to establish causation in a case involving injuries allegedly incurred from treatment with a prescription medication. In <i>Zito v. Zabarsky</i>, 28 A.D.3d 42 (2d Dep't Jan. 24, 2006), the appellate court held that expert testimony that a plaintiff's injury was caused by a prescription medication was admissible when that testimony was based on a single case report indicating a link between the medication and the injury. The court's holding is inconsistent with other New York appellate decisions addressing the admissibility of expert testimony concerning medical causation and threatens to dilute New York's standard for making that assessment, and could have the same effect in other states that apply the same standard.
How to Stand Out from the Crowd
The language is clear: 'An advertisement or solicitation shall not depict the use of a courtroom or courthouse.' While using a courthouse in an ad for your law firm may be a clich' ' and fail to set you apart from the competition ' it hardly seems intuitive that doing so would violate advertising guidelines. That will be the case in New York, if a proposed rule goes into effect this month. Across the country, advertising rules continue to evolve, so pinpointing how to best spend your marketing dollars can be challenging.
Electronic Health Records
While most physicians today have yet to make the leap into using electronic health records (EHR), more and more physicians are implementing EHR technology in their practices. As a result, physicians and their counsel are now confronting the various hurdles relating to e-discovery in their defense of medical malpractice claims.
Anti-SLAPP Statutes and Peer Review
Hospitals trying to assemble a peer review committee to review another practitioner's record and perhaps impose sanctions for substandard performance have their jobs cut out for them because physicians are often reluctant to pass judgment on a colleague. In addition to this natural reticence, those who sit on or testify at a peer review proceeding have another reason to want to avoid it: the threat of lawsuits brought by the medical practitioner facing discipline. The scope of the problem is obvious: without willing and honest participants, the peer-review system that helps keep patients safe is compromised.
Out of Court and Onto the Web
If a doctor's mistakes can be broadcast over the Internet for all the world to see, will he or she be more or less likely to settle a claim? What about plaintiffs? What are the implications for them should their suits against doctors and hospitals some day become public knowledge?
Hospital Liability for Actions of Independent Contractor Physicians
The classic vicarious liability claim goes something like this: The patient is referred to the local hospital, receives treatment from a physician who is not an employee of the hospital, and now that an adverse outcome has arisen from the treatment, the patient brings a claim against both the physician and the hospital. The foundation of the vicarious liability claim is that the hospital has held out the physician as having 'apparent authority' to act as an agent of the hospital, thereby inducing a reasonable reliance by the patient on that agency. With this year's publication of the new Restatement of the Law (Third) of Agency (2006), there may be subtle changes in store in some courts' inquiry into this aspect of liability assignment; therefore, review of the case law as it now stands and analysis of the change in the Restatement are in order.
Bariatric Surgery Demand Is Rising
Morbid obesity affects over 20 million Americans; indeed, between 3% and 5% of the adult population of the United States is morbidly obese, or clinically severely obese, the highest percentage of population of any country. Sabiston: Textbook of Surgery. 17th ed. Townsend, CM (ed) et al. Elsevier Saunders 2004 p. 357. Severe obesity and its co-morbidities are estimated to cause 280,000 deaths annually in the United States compared with 90,000 per year from breast and colon cancer. Given these numbers, it is not surprising that bariatric surgical operations are in more demand by patients than any other operation and have experienced the most rapid growth rate both of procedures performed and surgeons performing them than any area of general surgery over the past 3 years. Id.
