Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice

by

The death of a patient who was also reportedly a close friend and employee of the accused doctor has left “a Northeast Portland physician (facing) administrative charges” and the possible loss of her medical license, according to a recent article published by The Oregonian.

The newspaper reports that the doctor has been charged with “gross or repeated negligence” connected to a December 2010 procedure in which her misadministration of a local anesthetic caused the patient to suffer a seizure and lose consciousness. The patient died four days later. The doctor, who now stands accused of Oregon medical malpractice, told the investigating board that “the surgery was to remove a lesion, (but) she told her patient’s son it was an attempted ‘tummy tuck’ to remove unwanted fat.”

The report by the medical board cited a number of significant issues, including inadequate evaluation by the doctor prior to surgery, the presence of insufficient back-up resources in case something went wrong and failure “to recognize symptoms of the drug overdose” once they became apparent.

Continue reading

by

It is one of the things we all most fear – and over which we have the least control – when entering the hospital: preventable errors. Recently, Portland’s main newspaper has been reporting on an equally disturbing problem related to preventable errors and Oregon medical malpractice: the fact that because some of the reporting hospitals do regarding their mistakes seems to be coming up short. As a result, there is not as much data available to doctors and medical administrators as there should be. That, in turn, may mean that some hospital errors are going unaddressed because word of them is not making its way through the state health system.

The issue was brought to light by a recent article in The Oregonian. The paper noted that “at least 34 patients died as a result of preventable mistakes in Oregon hospitals last year.” The real issue, however, is that fully one-third of Oregon’s hospitals “chose not to report a single error in 2010.” As the paper notes, “this strains credulity.”

Hospital reporting is an issue I’ve addressed before – and one that should command a lot more public attention than it does. It is, of course, natural that few people like to acknowledge error, but when reporting data could lead to better procedures and, eventually, a drop in Oregon hospital deaths we have entered a realm where pride has no place.

Continue reading

by

A recent column in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call highlights a potentially serious attack on patients rights here in Oregon and elsewhere, one that has received relatively little notice in the months since the new Congress convened.

The focus of the piece is HR 5. Formally titled the Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-Cost, Timely Healthcare Act (i.e. the “HEALTH Act”), it is billed as a centerpiece of Republican efforts to repeal and replace the health care reform act passed by President Barack Obama and the Democrats last year. According to the federal government’s legislative bill-tracking service, Thomas.gov, the bill is co-sponsored by about half of all the Republicans in the House. Among Oregon’s congressional delegation only Rep. Greg Walden, whose district covers much of rural eastern and central Oregon, is a co-sponsor.

The official summary says that the bill “sets conditions for lawsuits arising from health care liability claims.” In particular, it establishes a three-year statute of limitations for most health-care related injuries. In addition, the bill “limits noneconomic damages to $250,000 (and) makes each party liable only for the amount of damages directly proportional to such party’s percentage of responsibility.” It also forbids the awarding of punitive damages “in the case of products approved, cleared or licensed” by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Continue reading

by

The US Supreme Court heard arguments this week in a case that raises important issues about personal privacy, patients relationships with their doctors and what some see as corporate America’s right to see people’s personal data because doing so may aid their marketing efforts.

According to the Burlington Free Press, the case turns on “a Vermont law that restricts the use of doctors’ prescription records for marketing purposes.” Pharmaceutical companies have challenged the law, arguing that they need to know which doctors are prescribing generic as opposed to brand-name drugs so that they can target their marketing to doctors who, they feel, should opt for generic medicines less often. The Free Press reports that 35 states, the District of Columbia, the US Justice Department and “organizations representing more than 100,000 physicians” back the law, while “numerous business and research groups, including the US Chamber of Commerce” oppose it. The measure went into effect last year. A Federal District judge upheld it, but was reversed by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals.

From a patients’ perspective challenges to this law raise several potentially disturbing issues. As patients we presume our conversations with out doctors are private. It is unclear from the court arguments whether personally identifiable information is being shared with drug companies. Also, should patients have some right to know whether their doctor’s prescribing decisions were effected by a marketing hard-sell from drug manufacturers? Considering the number of scandals in recent years surrounding medical marketing these are very legitimate questions for patients to ask.

Continue reading

by

Following up a story I wrote about in February, The Oregonian reports that federal regulators have cleared Portland Adventist Medical Center of wrongdoing in a high-profile case in which a man died of a heart attack in the hospital’s parking lot.

As regular readers will recall, 61-year-old Birgilio Marin-Fuentes suffered a heart attack as he drove into Adventist’s parking facility on February 10. He crashed his car into a wall, but lay in the vehicle unnoticed for more than 20 minutes despite the presence of surveillance cameras in the facility and the fact that the emergency room door was only a short distance away.

Police eventually arrived to help the stricken man. There is some dispute over how the hospital acted at this point. Some accounts say a police officer who ran to the emergency room was rebuffed by desk staff there and told the emergency needed to be telephoned in before hospital staff could respond – despite the emergency being on their own property. Hospital spokespersons have rejected that version of events. Martin-Fuentes died shortly after being moved inside the hospital building.

Continue reading

by

On March 30 a case was argued before the US Supreme Court that has the potential to impact the use of nearly every generic prescription drug sold in America. The court heard oral arguments in a case involving generic drug manufacturers and their contention that they should be held to less strict labeling laws – and receive greater immunity from lawsuits – than the manufacturers of brand-name medications. This case has clear, significant implications for personal injury and medical malpractice law here in Oregon. The court’s final decision, expected in the late spring or early summer, will bear close scrutiny

According to a detailed account of the case on the website of the American Association for Justice, generic drug makers are arguing that a federal law requiring them to use the same labels as their brand-name rivals prohibits them from strengthening warnings to consumers and also, in effect, prohibits consumers injured by generic drugs from suing the manufacturers over labeling issues. They are making this claim, AAJ notes, despite a court brief filed by one of the congressmen who write the law saying that his, and Congress’, intent was nothing like what the drug makers claim.

At issue is a piece of legislation known as “Hatch-Waxman” that requires “a generic label to match that of its associated brand-name drug.” Lawyers for the plaintiffs, two women injured by a generic prescription drug for stomach conditions, described the case as turning on the manufacturers’ belief that “in the face of considerable information that the warnings on their products were inadequate” generic drug manufacturers did nothing to protect consumers, and feel they should suffer no consequences for that decision. The case is especially important since, as AAJ reports, “70 percent of all prescriptions in the United States are filled with generic drugs and that, of the drugs that have both a generic and a brand-name available, more than 90 percent of the prescriptions are filled with generics.”

Continue reading

by

A report released this week by the consumer watchdog organization Public Citizen raises serious questions about the conduct of state medical boards, according to an analysis published by the Los Angeles Times. The charges, in turn, raise broader questions about the conduct of hospitals and doctors and the prevalence in our health care system of doctors who are problematic at best. Here in Oregon it must make conscientious citizens wonder whether instances of medical malpractice or even wrongful deaths have been allowed to occur as a result of insufficient professional oversight.

As outlined by Public Citizen on the group’s website (see link below) the study examined 20 years of data (1990-2009) regarding doctors who have had “one or more clinical privilege actions,” meaning that they have had some or all of their hospital or emergency privileges withdrawn because of misconduct, incompetence or some other professional infraction. It then compared these numbers with the numbers of physicians sanctioned over the same period by state medical boards. The analysis yields a shocking result: nationwide, 55% of doctors disciplined by their hospitals suffered no further punishment from their state licensing board.

When thinking about the possible implications of this information for Oregon medical malpractice we can take some comfort from the fact that our state had one of the better records on this score. In Oregon, 41.48% of doctors who had some or all of their hospital privileges revoked over the study period suffered no state-imposed sanction. That number is obviously far too high, though it is better than what one finds in most other states (for comparative purposes: Colorado had the lowest rate of unsanctioned doctors at 31.63%; Hawaii was worst with a truly shocking 77.08%).

Continue reading

by

A California nursing home has been ordered to pay the largest fines allowed under state law following the death of a patient. For us here in Oregon this nursing home neglect and abuse case, though it comes from out-of-state, serves as a powerful reminder of the important role courts and regulators play in keeping watch over those charged with helping vulnerable seniors.

According to a report in the Orange County Register the case stems from the death of 93-year-old Donald Bodkin, who, the paper reports, “died in September from an undetected ruptured intestinal ulcer and infection.” Bodkin was not a long-time resident of the home but, rather, had checked in only a few weeks earlier for a temporary stay while recovering from hip surgery.

The paper reports that the state believes the home did not assess Bodkin’s condition properly, failed to tell his doctor once the symptoms became obvious and ignored warnings from both family members and an occupational therapist “that he was lethargic and in pain.” The nursing home has expressed regret for Bodkin’s death but said in a statement that it does not believe the actions of any of its staff “caused or contributed to this unfortunate event.”

Continue reading

by

With little public notice this week the House Judiciary Committee in Washington DC sent to the floor a proposed law that, if enacted, will dramatically curtail the right of Oregonians to receive just compensation in medical malpractice lawsuits. As laid out in the official summary of the legislation (click here to read the full summary at the legislative-tracking website Thomas.gov) the so-called Help Efficient, Accessible, Low Cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2011 would shorten the statute of limitations for most medical malpractice cases and make it much more difficult to win punitive damages in an Oregon medical malpractice case. Any defendant who managed to win in court despite these new rules would find that the law also places severe limits on the size of the damages a court can award.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), was first introduced late last month as HR 5 (the Senate version of the legislation, S 218, is sponsored by Nevada Republican John Ensign). It was hustled through the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month and passed out of committee on a voice vote – a stunningly fast timeline for such potentially momentous legislation.

Two of the most telling aspects of HR 5 are clauses that would shield the pharmaceutical and medical device industries from responsibility for their actions while limiting attorney’s fees in medical malpractice and medical wrongful death suits to a level that may discourage many attorneys from taking on such cases.

Continue reading

by

On its surface it is an Oregon wrongful death story so unbelievable it reads like the plot of a prime time police drama: a man feeling ill and heading for the hospital suffers a heart attack, crashes his car into a wall inside the hospital’s parking structure only steps from the emergency room entrance… then lies there, unconscious, for 20 minutes before anyone notices him. When summoned to the scene, the police attempt to revive him while sending another officer running into the emergency room for help – only to be told that hospital protocol requires the police to call 911 first and then wait for a dispatcher to give a formal order for the hospital’s own ambulance to pick up a patient lying only steps from the emergency room door, according to an account published in The Oregonian.

The heart attack victim, Birgilio Marin-Fuentes eventually made it into the emergency room, but was pronounced dead a short time later. The week since this Oregon hospital death has been marked by finger pointing between the police and the hospital, Portland Adventist, a threat from a U.S. congressman to investigate the hospital and seeming incomprehension throughout the city at how bureaucracy could have gotten so badly in the way of what would seem to be simple common sense.

However this case is eventually resolved on a criminal level, it raises serious questions that may also need to be resolved in civil court, via a Portland wrongful death or Portland medical malpractice lawsuit. Even if there were compelling reasons to adhere to procedures designed to dispatch emergency care across town, rather than across the hospital’s own parking lot, one needs to ask, in turn, why the emergency protocols themselves were so rigid.

Continue reading
50 SW Pine St 3rd Floor Portland, OR 97204 Telephone: (503) 226-3844 Fax: (503) 943-6670 Email: matthew@mdkaplanlaw.com
map image