Public Citizen ranks Tennessee 40th in its 2008 ranking of serious doctor disciplinary actions taken by state medical licensing boards. The Tennessee board took a total of 40 serious disciplinary actions against the 18,137 doctors in Tennessee, or a total of 2.44 actions per 1000 physicians. The total leading states were Alaska…
The Wall Street Journal has been writing a series of articles about crashes of medical helicopters. A total of 13 crashes took 29 lives in 2008. This crashes can give rise to several potential types of claims. The patient has a potential claim, assuming he or she can prove that…
Many of us know that doctors prescribe drugs for uses other than those approved by the FDA. This article discusses off-label drug prescribing and suggests that physicians who prescribe a drug for an off-label use follow the following steps to obtain informed consent: a statement that the off-label use is…
The Idaho Supreme Court has permitted an expert to opine that two defendants in a medical negligence case engaged in not just negligent but reckless conduct. In Jones v. Crawford, 2009 Opinion 53 (Idaho S. Ct. April 8, 2009), a defendant appealed from an adverse jury verdict in a wrongful…
Evan Schaeffer at The Trial Practice Tips Weblog tracked down an article titled "Preparing A Witness for a Successful Deposition" written by Matt Keenan, a defense lawyer with Shook, Hardy and Bacon in Kansas City. An excerpt: In my 20-some years of working with company witnesses as part of the discovery process, I’ve…
Yesterday I mentioned that James Publishing Company’s website includes excerpts of certain of its books. I thought that the excerpt I referred to yesterday was so valuable that it was worth another post, so here is an excerpt from Section 439 of "How to Prepare for, Take and Use a Deposition" by Daniel…
James Publishing Company’s website includes excerpts of certain of its books. Here is an excerpt from Section 433 of "How to Prepare for, Take and Use a Deposition" by Daniel P. Dain. §433 Using a Checklist for Witness Preparation Some lawyers prefer to go through an extensive checklist of points for discussion…
David Mills, lawyer and cartoonist, held a contest to determine the best caption for this cartoon. The winning caption appears below. I submitted several entries, including "“Yes, I made $4M last year testifying for Ford, but that does not influence my professional judgment," and "demonstrative evidence is essential when…
Here are the 28 medical events that the National Quality Forum says should never occur: Surgical Events Surgery performed on the wrong body part Surgery performed on the wrong patient Wrong surgical procedure on a patient Retention of a foreign object in a patient after surgery or other procedure Intraoperative…
I brought a couple posts from the Lean and Mean Litigation Blog to your attention back in December. These posts discussed the need of formulating a discovery plan before taking depositions. Here is a related article titled "Mastering the Blind Cross-Examination" written by Mark A. Nuebauer. This article questions the…