The Illinois Supreme Court has made it easier for personal injury lawyers and their clients to prove a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress. In Thornton v. Garcini, 2009 WL 3471065, No. 107028 (Ill. Oct. 29, 2009), the Supreme Court held that “expert testimony is not required to support a claim for negligent infliction… Read More
Hospital ‘Report Cards’ Show Frequency of Medical Errors
As the debate over medical liability reform continues, an often forgotten statistic is the number of patients injured or killed by medical malpractice. In New Jersey, for example, a story from the Star-Ledger found that doctors and hospitals in that state committed 9,400 “serious errors” in 2007, which were defined as a medical error leading… Read More
State Enforcement of Medical Misconduct: The Illinois Medical Practice Act
A previous post discussed state medical boards generally, which are charged with enforcing the practice of medicine within each state. In Illinois, that law is known as the Illinois Medical Practice Act of 1987 (225 ILCS 60/1 et seq), not to be confused with the Illinois statutes governing medical malpractice lawsuits (735 ILCS 5/2-1701… Read More
State Licensing Boards No Substitue For Malpractice Liability
In the hotly debated issue of tort reform and health care reform, the role of state medical boards often gets overlooked. As a recently article in the Dallas Morning News, highlights, state medical boards are not always the best solution for disciplining physician misconduct. Furthermore, medical licensing boards do not even attempt to compensate those… Read More
Doctor Unqualified to Testify Against Nurse in Medical Malpractice Case
A recent Illinois appellate court case discusses the expert witness requirements in medical malpractice actions. The holding comes as no surprise to experienced Chicago medical malpractice lawyers: a doctor is not considered qualified to testify concerning the “standard of care” of a nurse in a medical negligence action. In the case, Smith v. Pavlovich, M.D.,… Read More
Passen Comments on Medical Peer Review Abuse in Malpractice Context
Medical malpractice reform, part of a larger “tort reform” effort, remains a hotly debated issue as health care continues to take front and center. Various reforms have been offered and continue to be debated. One such tort reform measure, which has gone under the radar while receiving steady traction, has been the creation of medical… Read More
‘Defensive Medicine’ Saves Lives
Part of the push for medical malpractice tort reform as part of the overall Health Care Reform package is the argument that medical liability reform will reduce the practice of “defensive medicine” — the practice of doctors ordering “unnecessary” tests because the doctor is afraid of missing a diagnosis, and then being found to have… Read More
Study: Medical Liability Reform Has No Impact on Health Care Costs, Including Insurance Premiums
According to a recent study concerning medical liability reform conducted by the Americans for Insurance Reform (AIR), a coalition of nearly 100 consumer and public interest groups around the country, there is no correlation between medical malpractice reform and decreases in insurance rates for doctors. The study concludes that there is “absolutely no reason to… Read More
Misdiagnosis or Failure to Diagnose a Medical Condition
According to a recent news story in Ohio, a pathologist claims to have new evidence that proves hundreds of women patients were misdiagnosed with human papillomavirua and precancerous conditions at the Ohio State University Medical Center. This story highlights a common, and often devastating form of medical negligence: the misdiagnosis, or failure to diagnose, of… Read More
Hospital Acquired Infections – Lax Reporting
In the September issue of The Atlantic, David Goldhill, author of “How American Health Care Killed My Father”, talks about how his father entered the hospital with pneumonia, but was killed by a series of infections he picked up while in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the hospital. Unfortunately, thousands of families across the… Read More
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