Detroit Medical Malpractice Blog

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine recently completed a study that supports what medical malpractice attorneys have been saying for decades: malpractice lawsuits are not the cause of soaring healthcare costs.

Researchers found that huge medical malpractice damages awards get in news headlines, but account for less than .05 percent of all U.S. healthcare expenses. The study should give a black eye to politicians who continue blaming malpractice suits for healthcare costs.

In 2009, a nursing home resident was rushed to the hospital, barely clinging to life. Acting on limited information, the hospital staff attempted to treat the 46-year-old for a heart attack, but he died soon after. Postmortem toxicology tests revealed that the man did not die from an ordinary heart attack, but a morphine overdose.

The news left family members devastated and baffled. The man, who suffered from mental illness, was not prescribed morphine. Did someone in the nursing home inject him with lethal levels of the drug? Were morphine pills left unattended where he could have accessed them? Did a nurse make a fatal medication error?

An unconscionable study risked the lives and health of more than 1,300 babies without their parents' knowledge. The trial, known as the SUPPORT study, provided varying levels of oxygen to prematurely born infants and measured the effects. The government-funded study spanned five years and involved 23 hospitals across the nation, including Wayne State University.

By administering low oxygen to premature babies, the study exposed infants to the following side effects:

• Eye disease and blindness
• Brain damage
• Chronic lung disease
• Wrongful death

If you have a scheduled surgery you may want to call your doctor to make sure you aren't going to be his or her "guinea pig" for learning a new, robotic surgical system. It's happened to thousands of patients, who only become aware of it after they are seriously injured and initiate a medical malpractice suit. Fred E. Taylor was one such patient.

Taylor arrived at the hospital for a routine prostatectomy, but his surgery lasted more than 13 hours. His surgeon was using a robotic surgical tool, known as the da Vinci Surgical System, but he had never used it outside of the training setting. The surgeon's inexperience led to serious consequences for Taylor; his botched surgery left him incontinent with a colostomy bag, ultimately resulting in lung and kidney damage and a stroke.