Albany, New York Personal Injury Blog

Expectant mothers try to do everything they can to make sure that their baby is born healthy and happy. They take all the parenting classes, they eat the right foods, and they stay away from secondhand smoke and abstain from alcohol.

Sadly, even if you do everything right, you can't guarantee that a pregnancy and delivery will be free from complications. A significant number of birth injuries are caused, not by a mother's mistakes, but by the negligence of the hospital and its physicians. Complications or injuries during birth can irreparably damage a newborn for the rest of his or her life.

The cost of healthcare in America has been a focal point for general discussion, media coverage and political action for many years. As medical costs skyrocket and the safety of patients remains frequently in peril, Americans are struggling with how to decrease costs while increasing the quality of patient care. Unfortunately, the subject of medical malpractice payouts has gotten dangerously muddied during the course of this discussion.

Many people incorrectly assume that medical malpractice suits are wasteful and that their payouts are greatly contributing to the rising costs of medical care generally. In reality, neither of these assumptions is based in fact. Medical malpractice lawsuits serve to hold healthcare providers accountable for substandard care that significantly harms patients. And the malpractice claims that these victims receive are both necessary and not a drain on the system.

Last month, we wrote that when you or a loved one has been injured by medical negligence, it can be a bad idea to accept a settlement offer without taking time to carefully consider your options. An experienced medical malpractice attorney can help you determine the best course of action, even if a settlement seems tempting at first.

A great example of this is a New York case that has been making national headlines. It involved a lawsuit against a hospital filed by the parents of a 10-year-old girl who suffers from severe cerebral palsy due to inadequate and negligent perinatal care. On the advice of their attorney, the parents rejected an $8 million settlement offer; and although it took some patience and persistence, the family was eventually awarded $130 million by a jury.

If you have had one of a variety of different surgeries - including prostate or gallbladder removal or a hysterectomy - in recent years, you have likely been informed about the increasingly common use of robots during operations. In fact, just last year, approximately 367,000 operations were performed in which robots were used across the country.

It is said that those who fail to learn from their mistakes are bound to repeat them. This is true in many aspects of life, but especially in medical care. The vast majority of medical mistakes are preventable; and unless physicians and aspiring physicians can learn from past medical errors, patients will continue to suffer preventable harm.

With this in mind, one medical malpractice attorney in New York has come up with an idea that has been well received by fellow attorneys and judges. He wants to create a central database of closed medical malpractice lawsuits with names and identifying information removed. Doctors and medical schools could use these as real-life case studies in order to learn from them and improve patient safety.

Most doctors are pretty thorough when it comes to examining and diagnosing their patients. These medical professionals know that anything short of a thorough examination could cause them to miss an important symptom and potentially put their patients at risk.

Unfortunately, there are some doctors who have very little regard for patient safety, which causes them to take a recklessly lax approach to examination and diagnosis. Unsurprisingly, this eventually leads to misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis of serious and life-threatening conditions.

Anyone who has been injured by medical negligence will tell you that a lawsuit can take significant time. Hospitals in New York and across the country often try to take advantage of this and tempt injured patients with a quick settlement in order to avoid litigation.

However, taking the settlement may not always be in your best interest. In many cases where patients have filed a medical malpractice lawsuit, hospitals will offer a settlement amount that is substantial but significantly less than what patients could be awarded if the case went to trial. In other cases, patients might request a settlement amount without knowing how much compensation they may be entitled to in a jury trial.

Organ donation fulfills an important medical need, and donated organs have saved the lives of millions in New York and across the country. But organs are only life-saving if they are viable and free of infectious disease. If not, a donated organ can be lethal to the recipient.

It is up to organ procurement organizations to evaluate each organ donor's suitability, and up to hospitals to confirm that an organ is both viable and disease-free before it is implanted. Negligence on the part of any healthcare professionals in this area can lead to deadly infections in patients.