Medical: April 2009 Archives

Heart expert Dr. Charles Swerdlowfor has told a public inquiry into Robert Dziekanski's death that he doesn't think the stun gun contributed to the man's death.  Dziekanski died in October 2007 after four RCMP officers confronted him at Vancouver's airport and stunned him several times with a Taser.  The expert, a heart specialist who sits on Taser International's medical advisory board, says he doesn't believe the death is at all related to the Taser.  MetroNewsca Vancouver reports:

Swerdlow says if electric current causes an irregular heartbeat, such as ventricular fibrillation, it would happen immediately.  He notes that an airport security guard testified he checked Dziekanski's pulse three times before firefighters arrived, and he had a pulse each time. An autopsy concluded Dziekanski died of sudden death following restraint.

From InjuryBoard.com:

The insurance company for the doctor or hospital who’s at fault in causing your injury will not simply pay you the money because they feel sorry for having done you harm. The insurance company will fight you every step of the way and typically not voluntarily settle a case until your attorney has shown all of his cards including what (medical) experts he has managed to arrange to support the claim. In addition to the difficulty of finding these experts, there’s also the question of paying the expenses of the experts for their time. These costs start off in the $5,000.00 and $10,000.00 range just for an initial review. By the time a North Carolina medical malpractice case is resolved by jury verdict or settlement at mediation, it has typically taken $20,000.00, $50,000.00 or even $100,000.00 of out‑of‑pocket expense to prove the validity of the claim. So, unless you are in a position to pay this money yourself which most clients are not, then you have to have an attorney and a law firm who has the financial clout to invest in your case to get something done for you. Another thing which separates the experienced medical malpractice lawyers in North Carolina from those who just dabble or advertise for such cases is the willingness to shell out the significant dollars as client cost advance to pursue the case. Thus, you really must have experienced counsel who knows and routinely does medical malpractice in order to successfully get compensation for a botched surgery, a missed diagnosis, an improper administration of medication, or other injury which does happen in the health care system.

From InjuryBoard.com:

The law of North Carolina (NC) that governs lawsuits against doctors, hospitals, nurses or other health care providers requires certification before you can go to court that an expert in the appropriate field of medicine has reviewed the case and has agreed that the doctor in question violated the applicable standard of care in their treatment of the patient. This law which requires that you have the appropriate medical expert before going to court makes it important to get the best injury attorney that you can to handle your North Carolina medical malpractice case. The top injury lawyers who focus on medical negligence have access to appropriate doctors to prove their cases. Even if the patient has suffered a serious injury or even death because of an error by a health care provider, it can be very difficult to find another doctor who is willing to stand up and testify under oath that the first doctor messed up. If you have a catastrophic and permanent injury as a result of the doctor or hospital’s mistake in North Carolina, you need to have an experienced attorney on your side who is in a position to find the highly qualified doctors in the right specialty to prove your case. Without the right expert, you cannot hope to win these complex and hard fought cases.

Madison County, NJ,  jurors heard medical expert testimony from Dr. Aaron Chevinsky in the first day of the wrongful death suit against Dr. Jose A. Diaz Jr.  Diaz is being sued by plaintiff Russell Darbon, 44, in the death of his former wife, 43-year old Virginia Gettys.  The suit alleges Diaz failed to perform necessary tests on Gettys when she was admitted to St. Joseph's Hospital in Highland in January 2004. Gettys, who complained of abdominal pain two days after a colonoscopy, died three days after being taken to the Highland emergency room.

An autopsy showed that Gettys died of sepsis stemming from a severe kidney infection. Expert Chevinsky testified that, although Gettys' symptoms had presented in an unusual way, there were enough signs pointing to the kidney infection to necessitate further tests before surgery.

Excerpted from MadisonRecord.com.

InjuryBoard.com on medical malpractice experts and ethics complaints:

Despite the importance and accepted use of expert testimony in medical malpractice actions, there appears to be a growing trend of national medical associations creating ethics complaint procedures meant to scrutinize experts' testimony. An article in Lawyers USA reported that plaintiff's experts feel they are being singled out and the growing number of ethics complaints may have the "chilling effect" of reducing the number of experts willing to testify in malpractice cases. In response to ethics complaints, some medical experts are filing lawsuits alleging witness intimidation, defamation, and interference with business contracts. According to John Vail, the plaintiff's attorney in a recent defamation case, doctors receive very little money for testifying as an expert witness but could be subject to upwards of $50,000 in costs to defend an ethics complaint. Some doctors, such as Vail's client, Dr. Charles Yancey, are fighting back and are winning.

Posted by Steve Klearman at InjuryBoard.com.

The Arizona Supreme Court in March upheld the constitutionality of a 2005 law establishing minimum qualifications for medical liability experts.  Amednews.com reports:

The high court rejected arguments from the state trial bar that it was up to the courts -- not lawmakers -- to set rules governing expert witness testimony and that the statute violated the separation of powers between the legislature and the judiciary.

Instead, justices in a 4-1 opinion found that the expert requirements were not merely a procedural matter pertaining to how judges conduct trials -- an area traditionally left to the courts. Rather, the expert qualifications formed a "substantive component" of establishing proof in a medical liability claim in the first place -- an area the legislature was free to address, the court said.  Because Arizona's constitution prohibits any type of cap on damages in liability cases, "this is a very important decision for us," said Chic Older, Arizona Medical Assn. executive vice president.

An Akron 9th District Court of Appeals panel has ruled that visiting Common Pleas Judge Ted Schneiderman overstepped his bounds by ordering the medical examiner to remove specific language from the autopsy and death certificate of jail inmate Mark D. McCullaugh Jr.  McCullaugh, 28, died Aug. 20, 2006, after what Summit County sheriff's records described as a ''violent struggle'' with deputies in his cell in the jail's mental-health unit.

The medical examiner, Lisa J. Kohler, ruled in October 2006 that McCullaugh's death was a homicide caused by asphyxia from multiple blunt-force blows and the ''combined effects of chemical, mechanical and electrical restraint.''  Medical expert witnesses said the stun gun ''did not contribute in any way'' to the death of McCullaugh.  Wednesday’s decision was a victory for Taser International Inc. because the court ruled that Schneiderman was not wrong in ordering Kohler to remove specific Taser references from McCullaugh's autopsy and death certificate.

Excerpted from Ohio.com.