Med Mal News
The latest news of importance to you and your practice.
Peer Review Proceedings Are Not Always Confidential
The peer review process is indispensable to promotion of quality in medical facilities. A major component of the process is honesty; without open investigation and discussion of adverse events and their causes, meaningful reforms for avoiding the same occurrences again are less likely to be made. To ensure open discourse, nearly every state has enacted laws protecting the confidentiality of peer review proceedings. However, federal law may not always be so deferent to the privacy concerns of the peer review committee. In certain circumstances, what most participants thought would be a closed record under state law might be opened by competing federal law enacted to protect the disabled.
Bariatric Surgery Today
It is now common knowledge that the Centers for Disease Control and the American Medical Association consider obesity to be a high-priority medical problem. To combat the growing epidemic, bariatric surgery, which is indicated for 'severely' or 'morbidly' obese patients ' generally defined as a body mass index (BMI) over 40 (a 'normal' BMI is 19-25) ' has become increasingly popular. Surgery may also be indicated for patients with a BMI between 35 and 40, if there are significant co-morbid conditions.
When Is Your Doctor Not Your Doctor?
Modern understanding of medical malpractice is based upon the presence of a physician-patient relationship. This specific relationship gives rise to a special duty on the part of the physician, the breach of which is one of the requirements for finding professional negligence. Although this consensual relationship is often discussed and thought of in terms of an express contract ' that the relationship is created when professional medical services are 'offered' voluntarily and those services are 'accepted' voluntarily by another ' most courts have held that the creation of the relationship need not satisfy the formalities of a contract.
Protecting Product Liability Clients in the Event of an Avian Flu Pandemic
Recent news reports have brought international attention to the dramatic risks associated with a worldwide outbreak of the avian H5N1 virus flu. Although the legal issues that may arise as a result of a pandemic are not all necessarily product liability issues, attorneys with a focus on product liability law are well advised to consider how such a pandemic might affect their clients and potential clients. It is also prudent for product liability attorneys to…
Verdicts
Recent rulings of interest to you and your practice.
Accidents Don't Just Happen
As we have discussed in Parts One and Two, there are many well-understood reasons medical mistakes are made ' lack of communication between providers and patients, inattention to detail, placing profit above patient care, and so forth.If we examine all these reasons for medical negligence while looking specifically at health care providers ' why a particular practitioner makes a mistake ' I find that mistakes often happen because doctors, nurses and others in the medical professions 'are' who they are, as people. It is a 'people phenomenon' ' a function of personality that manifests itself in the way a person works.
