A recent large medical malpractice verdict in New Mexico was probably due at least in part to the “ick” factor of the injury.

The jury awarded the plaintiff $412 million, of which $37 million was actual damages to compensate him for the injury he suffered, and another $375 million in punitive damages to punish the defendant and to discourage others from engaging in similar conduct.

The story began when the plaintiff, who was 66 at the time, went to a men’s health clinic because he was feeling fatigued and wanted to lose some weight. The clinic operates in a number…
Continue Reading A Large Malpractice Verdict In New Mexico

Last week I wrote about a poor, young girl who died following a dental procedure under general anesthesia. As tragic as her case was, at least the dentist who performed the procedure was a licensed, trained professional. That is not always the case. People who claim to be cosmetic surgeons or other licensed health care providers are all over social media encouraging the gullible, and maybe even the not-so-gullible, to come in for treatment. Cosmetic procedures are one of the hottest areas for these fraudsters as we all want to be young and beautiful forever.

You don’t have to look…
Continue Reading Be Careful! The Quacks Are All Around Us

Recently an 9 year-old girl in the San Diego area died following a dental procedure performed under general anesthesia. Although the child’s death is still under investigation, this was not the first anesthesia mishap for this dentist. Five years ago, an adult patient suffered a code arrest while under anesthesia for a dental procedure with this dentist. The man was able to be resuscitated. That near death experience resulted in a three year suspension from practice for the dentist from 2020 to 2023, but he is back practicing and putting patients under general anesthesia again.

We don’t know enough yet…
Continue Reading Who Will Protect Us?

America is graying. One in six Americans is over the age of 65 and this trend will continue at an increasing rate in the coming years. Older Americans are going to need more places to live and more people to care for them as they age. Private equity has noticed.

Many seniors choose to live in assisted living communities. Typically, there is a buy in and a monthly maintenance fee. As the seniors needs change, he or she may move to another part of the facility where they can receive a higher level of care. Should the senior choose to…
Continue Reading Don’t Get Too Comfortable In That Retirement Home

“Frequent Flyer” is the name given to a doctor who gets sued for malpractice on a regular basis. While a lawsuit filed against a doctor does not mean that the doctor does not provide good quality care, multiple lawsuits against the same doctor are a giant red flag. Multiple suits are indicative of a physician with poor skills, either medical or social or both. A doctor has to be deficient in some areas to draw multiple malpractice suits. If you go to one of those doctors, you are significantly more likely to become a victim of the doctor’s poor care.
Continue Reading Beware The Frequent Flyer

Our bodies are doomed to fail eventually. We can slow the process but we cannot prevent it. What we have some ability to prevent is loss of mental function. It now appears we can stay fairly sharp and prevent dementia, or at least reduce the risk of getting it, through certain modifiable behavioral factors.

By now you have certainly heard of the sad ending of the life of the Oscar-winning actor, Gene Hackman. His mental acuity had deteriorated to the point that, following his wife/caretaker’s unexpected death, he was unable to care for himself and unable even to call for…
Continue Reading Protecting Yourself From Dementia

Recently, a five-year-old boy burned to death in a hyperbaric chamber. He was being treated for sleep apnea and attention-deficit disorder. Needless to say, this child’s death should not have happened. It is hard to believe the number of errors by the provider that led to this tragedy. I see a lot of malpractice in my practice, but I cannot recall ever having seen so many mistakes coming together at one time. Due in large part to the sheer number of errors, four people have now been criminally charged in the death.

First some background. A hyperbaric chamber is an…
Continue Reading A Tragic Death With Many Lessons

Before a doctor ever lays hands on you or orders a prescription for you, there is a step that must be taken. Often it is not or it is done in a hurried, slapdash manner. That step is for the doctor to obtain your informed consent.

As you can see, there are two parts to informed consent. First, the patient must freely give his or her consent for the doctor to provide the recommended treatment. Secondly, the consent must be informed, which means that it should only be given after the doctor has explained both the risks and the benefits…
Continue Reading The Key To All Medical Treatment

The leading cause of death in the United States is heart disease. Every 33 seconds someone dies of it. One in every five deaths is due to heart disease. This is not earthshakingly new information. We have many effective treatments for heart disease. Why does it cause so much death?

While there are many answers to this question, I want to focus on the ones that relate to medical malpractice.

Simply put, many medical professionals are too quick to pass off the symptoms of heart disease as something more benign. This is especially true if the presenting symptoms are not…
Continue Reading Why Does This Keep Happening?

Welcome to Arizona, the melanoma capital of the United States (or at least pretty close to it). Due to our sunny days and position close to the Equator, we have a high incidence of melanoma. All that solar energy hitting our skin takes a toll. In 2022, our melanoma rate was 40% higher than the national average.

Melanoma is an aggressive and deadly cancer. It has two growth phases. In the first, the radial phase, it grows horizontally across the surface of the skin. During this phase, which may not last long, it is usually not likely to metastasize. In…
Continue Reading The ABC’s and D’s and E’s of Melanoma

Significant medical malpractice verdicts are rare and difficult to obtain. When they do happen, the cases usually share certain commonalities. Here is a recent large verdict from a relatively conservative Pennsylvania county that proves the point.

The patient was a 58 year old man, who had worked for many years as a mechanic on Harley Davidson motorcycles. As is the case with many men who do work that requires a lot of bending and lifting, he had back problems related to his spine. Some of the openings in his spine through which the nerves pass had narrowed over time, which…
Continue Reading Anatomy Of A Malpractice Verdict

Who doesn’t want to be loved? Love makes the world go round. Love can bring happiness, but it can also bring sadness and despair. Sadly, there are thousands upon thousands of scammers out there who look to make money from our desire to be loved. And make no mistake, many of them are very good at deception and separating perfectly rational people from their savings.

Modern life makes it so much easier for romance scammers to locate victims and to fleece them. The internet affords us chat rooms, dating apps, message boards, Facebook, affinity groups and so much more. When…
Continue Reading Looking For Love (In All The Wrong Places)

I know both from my reading and from experience that there is a lot of medical malpractice out there. However, there are not very many medical malpractice cases filed. What is going on? The answer is that there are a lot of different reasons why people who have been the victims of medical malpractice do not sue.

It’s A Secret

Many, many victims of medical malpractice don’t know that they are victims. They know that something bad has happened to them, but they have been told that it is just one of those things that can happen. The medical profession…
Continue Reading Why Medical Malpractice Victims Don’t Sue