Florida Boy Suffers Brain Injury after a House Fumigation
A 10-year-old Florida boy is recovering in the hospital after a routine fumigation left him with a severe brain injury. According to the family, their house was being fumigated to eliminate termites from the property. Terminix and Sunland Pest Control, the companies responsible for the fumigation, allegedly told the family they could return two days… Read more »
Tags: BrainInjury
Posted in Medical Malpractice
False Alarms at Hospitals can Jeopardize Patient Safety
Several weeks ago, we discussed how work fatigue could contribute to medical mistakes and endanger patient safety. However, other types of fatigue exist within hospitals. Research from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia recently studied the effects “alarm fatigue” can have on health care workers and patient safety. Hospital alarms alert health care workers to patient… Read more »
Tags: HospitalSafety
Posted in Medical Malpractice
Forged Signature May Have Led to Approval of Dangerous Medical Device
Blood clot filters are supposed to stop potentially deadly clots from reaching the lungs or heart, but new allegations suggest a major manufacturer of the devices forged a signature to get its product onto the market. Bard, which manufactures the Recovery IVC blood clot filter, has sold 34,000 of the devices. It is estimated the… Read more »
Tags: FDA
Posted in Medical Malpractice
Pharmacists Give Insight on How Pharmacy Mistakes Happen
Angry patients, constant phone calls, long work hours, hundreds of prescriptions, careless doctors and negligence are all causes of pharmacy mistakes, according to a Drug Topics article. Pharmacy mistakes can have serious and sometimes fatal consequences for patients, so it is important to understand how such errors can happen. One of the pharmacists interviewed for… Read more »
Tags: Pharmacists
Posted in Medical Malpractice
Reports Shows What Happens When Doctors Mock Unconscious Patients
Doctors and other health care professionals are expected to uphold a high level of professionalism and skill, but sometimes they behave badly. A recent blog published in the New York Times gives examples of doctors behaving badly. The article used an essay from the Annals of Internal Medicine to describe what happens when doctors mock… Read more »
Tags: HospitalSafety
Posted in Medical Malpractice
Misdiagnosis and You: What Patients Need to Know
Our blog earlier this week about a Florida doctor misdiagnosing patients with multiple sclerosis is a rare example of how health care professionals can sometimes “get it wrong”. However, non-criminal examples of misdiagnosis are far more common. According to a study in BMJ Quality & Safety, 12 million adults seeking medical care are misdiagnosed every… Read more »
Tags: PatientSafety
Posted in Medical Malpractice
Florida Pain Clinics and Preventable Overdose Deaths
Just a few years ago, Florida was the epicenter of a nationwide pain pill epidemic. Pain clinics, sometimes called pill mills, would see 500 patients and rake in $400,000 in profits per day. The enormously successful pill mills were linked to numerous overdose deaths across the country, as patients from other states would travel to… Read more »
Tags: FloridaNews
Posted in Medical Malpractice
Florida Doctor Who Misdiagnosed Patients with MS Practicing Again
A Florida doctor who was investigated by the U.S. Justice Department for misdiagnosing patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) has reportedly opened a new practice. The doctor was living in a million-dollar home and making $600,000 a year until a whistleblower from his neurology department alerted federal authorities that he had been charging Medicare and other… Read more »
Tags: MultipleSclerosis
Posted in Medical Malpractice
FDA Sends Recommendations to Hospitals Stop Superbug Infections
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has sent recommendations to hospitals on how to clean duodenoscopes. Superbug infections involving the devices have been linked to 13 deaths and hundreds of infections. Duodenoscopes are used in 660,000 medical procedures every year, putting countless people at risk for infections from CRE, an antibiotic resistant superbug. Swab… Read more »
Tags: FDA
Posted in Medical Malpractice
Nurses Rally in Florida to Warn About the Dangers of Fatigued Healthcare Workers
A small coalition of Florida nurses recently gathered to protest long hours and poor patient safety policies. Nurses with the Doctors Hospital of Sarasota are claiming they are understaffed, which puts patients at risk for medical mistakes. The nurses claim that over the last eight weeks, 103 patient meals have been missed because they are… Read more »
Tags: Nursing
Posted in Medical Malpractice
