Medical Malpractice

Woman sues radiology company over multiple cancer misdiagnoses

Published on: June 2, 2014 | by Patrick E. Knie

These days, to maintain your health, you have to be proactive. If you can manage it, exercising is a good idea, and getting regular medical checkups could be crucial to preventing or properly treating an illness. However, even when patients do try to cover their bases and seek preventative care, sometimes medical professionals fail in their duties and misdiagnose an illness.

That was the case for one woman who in 2007 underwent her first mammogram. She thought she was being proactive about her health, but she undoubtedly came away from the experience worried. A calcification about the size of a nickel was revealed in her right breast.

Outpatient misdiagnoses more common than you might think

Published on: April 18, 2014 | by Patrick E. Knie

A group of researchers has finished a study that comes to an unsettling conclusion about outpatient medical care: misdiagnosis is widely underreported and surprisingly common.

Much is said about diagnostic errors in hospitals, that is, in facilities that provide inpatient care. However, there is a great dearth of information about misdiagnoses by small-practice doctors and clinics. Looking at three previous studies, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine found that one in 20 — or 12 million U.S. adults — are misdiagnosed at medical clinics and doctors’ offices each year.

Studies: Doctor errors, not system flaws, cause most deaths

Published on: March 17, 2014 | by Patrick E. Knie

Since 1999, hospitals throughout the United States have made well-intentioned efforts to adopt systems meant to prevent hospital errors. However, studies have shown that the widespread use of systematized medicine, by which hospitals use checklists to follow established protocol, has not significantly reduced the number of preventable hospital deaths. In fact, it is estimated that at least 100,000 patients die each year as a result of medical errors.

So what can doctors, nurses and hospitals do to better protect the safety of patients?

Surgical glove found in patient two years later, lawsuit pending

Published on: December 31, 2013 | by Patrick E. Knie

It’s just about every person’s fear that something will go wrong when they go in for surgery. That’s because, despite the insistence of hospital staff that patients are well taken care of, residents here in South Carolina know that medical mistakes can happen anywhere and often have life-changing consequences as well.

Our readers here in Spartanburg can see this exemplified by a case of medical malpractice in which a woman was diagnosed with ovarian cancer only to realize that this was a misdiagnosis when a non-latex glove was discovered in her abdomen from a surgery two years previously. Much like anyone here would do in her situation, the woman is now suing the hospital for its negligence and is seeking compensation for the problems this mistake has caused her.

$6.5 million settlement reached in birth injury case

Published on: December 17, 2013 | by Patrick E. Knie

Most women have no concerns about going to the hospital to give birth to their child. That’s because they know that the hospital and its staff are well trained and know what they’re doing. We often trust this so much that we can feel incredibly betrayed when this ends up not being the fact. This can often leave us with a lasting anger and wondering if justice will be served.

Our readers here in South Carolina can see this exemplified in a recent case out of Texas where a first-time mother learned that the brain damage suffered by her newborn had not been hereditary but rather a result of negligence on behalf of hospital staff. In the end, a serious mistake on the part of the attending hospital staff resulted in a diagnosis of cerebral palsy that has left the now 5-year-old boy unable to care for himself and has left his mother feeling a bit of anger towards the institution that changed her family’s life forever.