Medical Malpractice
Kentucky Woman Wins $8.2 Million Verdict
A 35-year-old Kentucky mother went to St. Elizabeth Hospital in Edgewood with the worst headache of her life. The emergency room doctor ordered a CT exam to evaluate her headache. The CT showed evidence of a brain bleed, but the scan was misread by the radiologist. Another test was required, but instead the ER doctor told her it was just a migraine, and sent her on her way. Twelve days later, a blood vessel burst in her brain, and the woman was paralyzed from the neck down, unable to speak. An undetected brain aneurysm was to blame.
When Doctors Work for the Drug Company
All over the country, stories have come to light about healthcare providers receiving kickbacks and other financial incentives to recommend certain testing labs or prescribe drugs made by a particular manufacturer. Not only is this a horrendous ethical violation that can put lives in danger, it also violates federal and state laws. Drug companies and labs have made huge profits off the illnesses they claim to care about, and some doctors have helped them and profited from these practices.
“Never Events” Are Always Happening
What Are Never Events? So-called never events are medical mistakes so egregious that they are never supposed to happen. Since never events are not natural complications of medical procedures, they are, by definition, avoidable. As such, never events are almost always grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit.
How Common Is Medical Malpractice?
A 2016 study released by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers found that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States.