The Illinois Supreme Court has approved a new plan that requires medical malpractice parties in two Illinois counties to seek mediation before suing in medical malpractice cases. The hope is that both sides can come to an agreement to resolve the case without the necessity of lengthy (and costly) discovery…
The Baltimore Sun reports that the extension of a state program that subsidizes doctors’ malpractice insurance premiums is no longer in need considering a $68.6 million surplus reported by the state’s leading malpractice insurer, Medical Mutual Liability Insurance Society of Maryland. Earlier this week, the new state Insurance Commissioner, Ralph…
The debate over medical malpractice tort reform in Maryland has always been sung to the same tune: “Do we need to limit runaway juries by impeding their ability to award damages they deem appropriate?” The question implies that justice is not being served because juries are (1) wrongly siding against…
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals recently upheld a $3.5 million malpractice verdict after a 12-day jury trial against a Bethesda, Maryland obstetrician/gynecologist and Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC. After the verdict against both the doctor and the hospital, Sibley settled with the Plaintiff, but the doctor appealed.…
The Maryland Daily Record reports on a Carroll County electrician who was recently awarded $2.3 million in a medical malpractice case by a Baltimore City jury. After a weeklong trial, the jury found the defendant doctor negligent for piercing the plaintiff’s spinal cord during a pain relief procedure. Steroid Injections…
The Maryland State Bar Association annual meeting had a discussion group on a topic entitled, “A Cure for the Courts: Are Health Courts the Rx for Maryland?” The idea behind health courts is that specially trained judges would hear medical malpractice cases in Maryland, without juries present, deciding damages based…
Yesterday, an article by Brendan Kearney in the Maryland Daily Record reported on an insurance company’s plan to require its doctors to have patients sign waivers that limit both their rights and the amount of their damages. It starts out like this: “Eugene Rosov is passionate about what he does.…
This is one of the more depressing reports on medical malpractice that you will read. A recent study from Johns Hopkins has found that hospital staff members do not spot the vast majority of errors in pediatric chemotherapy until they have affected the child. According to the study, doctors and…
The Virginian-Pilot had an interesting article (the link is now lost) on Saturday regarding the punishment that the Virginia Board of Medicine gave to a Virginia Beach doctor who had admitted fabricating a patient’s vital signs during minor bunion surgery at Sentara Bayside Hospital. He prewired the oxygen saturation…
A recent study by the “Journal of General Internal Medicine” found that doctors are loath to admit medical mistakes. Virtually every doctor in the study of 538 doctors surveyed – 97 percent – agreed that they would report a theoretical medical error. But only 41 percent said they had disclosed…