Articles Posted in Malpractice Law

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In Allen v. United States, the government received summary judgment in North Dakota District Court in a medical malpractice case because they failed to retain an expert to offer opinions as to causation.

Plaintiff received transfusions at the Grand Forks Air Force Base Hospital in South Dakota over ten years ago. In 2005, while attempting to obtain life insurance, the plaintiff was diagnosed with Hepatitis C virus. Plaintiff claimed the government committed medical malpractice for failing to screen the blood she received and for failing to timely diagnose and treat her for the Hepatitis C virus.

Because expert testimony is required to support a prima facie case of medical malpractice in a case like this, the North Dakota court found that plaintiff’s failure to provide any expert evidence to prove her injuries and the cause of her injuries. The court called the cause of her Hepatitis C mere speculation.

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Sometimes medical malpractice clients assume that they have a “slam dunk case” when they learn that there has been disciplinary action by the Maryland Board of Physicians.

But under Maryland law, specifically § 14-410(a) of the Maryland Health Occupations Article, minutes or notes taken in the course of determining the denial, limitation, reduction, or termination of the employment contract of any physician in an alternative health system are not subject to review or discovery by any person nor are any finding made by the Board subject to subpoena or discovery.

In other words, these documents or findings from the medical board are not only inadmissible but are not even discoverable. This may seem unfair from the patient’s perspective. For good reason, the findings of the medical board and the doctor’s statements or omissions might apply to the patient’s medical malpractice lawyer’s effort to support the claim against a negligent doctor.

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USA Today has a good article about a nurse who was fired because her husband is a medical malpractice lawyer in Texas. Wait, strike that, the hospital she worked for assumed he was a medical malpractice lawyer. He is not.

Many are surprised to hear such a species still exists in Texas anyway, given its Draconian medical malpractice damage caps. But this story highlights a new trend of many doctors refusing care to medical malpractice lawyers, their families, and employees.

Some medical malpractice lawyers – and many doctors – see the refusal of doctors to provide medical treatment to patients seeking care as contrary to the Hippocratic oath, in which new doctors vow to appreciate “special obligations to all my fellow human beings.”

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Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi introduced a bill designed to encourage doctors and other medical professionals to volunteer their services to patients who cannot afford or access care. The law would provide grants that states would use in part to assume medical malpractice risk for doctors and ensure patients can recover damages from medical malpractice.

I have not thought through all the ramifications of such a bill, but it sure seems to make a lot of sense. What we also need to look at more creatively as a society is trying to get more doctors into rural areas. There have always been reports of doctor shortages in the more rural parts of Maryland.