Pittsburgh Medical Malpractice Law Blog

Many doctors' errors in administering certain medications come about because of the doctor's inadequate understanding of the drug itself. A demonstration in southern Pennsylvania concerning the use of a drug called Hydromorphone illustrated the problem with medication errors.

Hydromorphone is a morphine derivative used to manage pain. But since it is a derivative of morphine, doctors often mistakenly prescribe Hydromorphone in the same manner as if they were administering morphine. This has resulted in a number of required rapid response calls or use of rescue agents in order to revive patients that suffered an adverse response because of the wrong dosage being administered.

Rather than acknowledge that they have no idea what is wrong with you, a doctor will instead reach for a prescription pad and write out a prescription that may treat the symptom but do nothing to cure the illness. The prescriptions can be expensive and unnecessary. But of greater concern is that a misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis or failure to diagnose can ultimately only lead to more physical damage.

A woman suffering from migraines for more than 3-years was continually prescribed medications to take the pain away. Though she had told her various physicians about a rare lung condition, most of the doctors dismissed the idea that the migraines were in any way connected with her difficulties in breathing. She had found that a homemade remedy to combat the headaches was actually more effective than the pain medications that she was prescribed. However, no prescription that she was given during the 3-year period resulted in bringing the headaches to an end.

Birth injuries in Pittsburgh and elsewhere happen with greater frequency than is usually imagined. Though some of these birth injuries can be relatively minor, many can be severe and have a lifelong impact upon the health of the newborn child.

Though there will always be a certain amount of birth injuries that will be unpreventable, too often medical negligence and malpractice will play a role. The negligence could have been the result of some action of the doctor, nurse, anesthesiologist or even paramedic.

Steps taken by hospitals that supposedly improve patient safety must be viewed with skepticism. For example, there is little evidence that information technology and computerized medical systems have prevented doctor errors and hospital malpractice from occurring. Some individuals have even suggested that such systems have instead compromised patient safety.

A report released back in 1999 suggested that doctor and hospital errors resulted in approximately 98,000 deaths each year in the United States. However, suggestions that information sharing and technology would improve this situation appear to be in part due to wishful thinking.

A hospice patient for Pennsylvania was told that he had 6-months to live back in 2007, was prescribed with heavy doses of highly addicting painkillers, and then lived for five more years. In the meantime, the patient suffered from depression and drug addiction which left him begging for drugs from a number of doctors. The man finally died in August at the age of 52 after being removed from hospice some 32-months ago.

The doctor's diagnosis (or misdiagnosis) in this situation concerning the patient's condition was completely wrong. "This is a hospice case that spiraled out of control," one of his treating doctor's had said. This was a patient that "clearly wasn't dying" while in hospice and instead needed drug rehabilitation and cardiac care.

One of the reasons that birth injuries often result in multi-million dollar settlements in Pennsylvania or any other part of the nation is because the consequences of such injuries can last for an entire lifetime. As a recent incident of alleged medical malpractice has shown, sometimes both the mother and the child can be injured at the same time.

The birth related injuries allegedly resulted in the mother of the child having to receive a hysterectomy. These birth related injuries also are being blamed for a baby being born "dead" while soon after being resuscitated. The child, who is now 3-years old, suffers from cerebral palsy.

There is great concern in the medical community concerning training and supervision of the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Safety training and proper procedures may ultimately prevent a medical malpractice claim and fatalities from occurring. MRIs are cooled by liquid helium which, if it happens to come into contact with oxygen in the air, can cause an explosion or fire. Also, such fires are extremely difficult to put out.

Recently in Pennsylvania, a fire broke out while an MRI was taking place. Only safety training prevented this incident from becoming catastrophic. In Alabama, problems with an MRI caused an explosion that destroyed the MRI unit and caused structural damage to the hospital facility.

Fortunately for Pennsylvania residents, accreditation and licensing is required for a plastic surgeon to provide cosmetic procedures. There are states in which such practitioners will perform such procedures without any training outside of their own particular specialty. This has led to a number of physician related errors.

In Phoenix, for example, three separate patients died after cosmetic surgery was performed upon them by a particular physician. This forced the Arizona legislature to adopt new guidelines concerning the training of doctors in this particular area that plan on performing cosmetic surgery.