Dr. Vinita Parkash, professor of pathology at Yale School of Medicine, recently wrote a commentary featured in WBUR-Boston’s opinion section, Cognoscenti. In the commentary, she recalls a mistake she made earlier in her career: She failed to identify cancer cells when examining a tissue sample from a 42-year-old woman. That woman later died of cancer. Parkash notes that diagnostic errors receive less attention than oth...
People often don’t understand the importance of attorneys until they need one. Once someone is thrown into the legal system or needs compensation for a serious injury, they often realize that having a skilled, experienced legal advocate can make a significant difference in their personal lives. There are many benefits to hiring an attorney after you’ve suffered harm at the hands of a negligent healthcare provider. O...
A recent survey revealed that many nurses in Pennsylvania are unhappy in their jobs. The Pennsylvania Association of Nurses and Allied Professionals conducted the survey and found that the top complaint in the profession is understaffing – a problem which increases caseloads for nurses and undermines patient safety. Inadequate staffing in the nursing profession isn’t a new development, nor is it a problem specific to...
Researchers at Harvard University found that between 1992 and 2014, the number of payouts in medical malpractice cases dropped by 56 percent. But the average dollar value of payouts between 2009 and 2014 was $353,000 – about 23 percent higher than the average payout of $287,000 between 1992 and 1996. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in Pennsylvania, juries issued 101 medical malpractice verdicts in 2015, with...
Chest pain, abdominal pain, broken bones, upper respiratory infections, back pain, skin infections, foreign objects in the body, and headaches are some of the most common reasons that people seek help at an emergency room. When you are severely ill or critically injured, you expect that you will receive prompt and proper care at the ER. Unfortunately, many people have learned the hard way that these expectations are mispla...