Medical Malpractice

A 70-year-old man died after he jumped out of a window at Lancaster General Hospital. According to this article, his family is suing the hospital and two doctors who cared for him. Last summer, the man threw himself through a closed, eighth-story window at the Duke Street hospital and died. He had been hospitalized there for mental health problems. He had a history of seizures and anxiety. He threatened to leave t [...]

According to this article on Maineville.com, a Mayo Regional patient received 10 times the needed epinephrine. The article reported that Timothy Harvey, 51, went to the hospital’s emergency room on June 4. He was suffering from an allergic reaction and died early the next morning from a massive overdose of medication mistakenly administered by hospital staff. The hospital’s CEO said it takes full responsibi [...]

A recent article in The Legal Intelligencer discusses an annual court study which reveals that a 44% drop in the amount of medical malpractice filings has occurred. This decline is attributed to reform procedures initiated by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2003. The article mentions that PA medical malpractice cases must be filed in counties where the alleged malpractice and subsequent patient harm occurred. In [...]

A woman says that her 46-year-old husband died because an Erie hospital ran out of blood while treating him after a motorcycle crash. The man was a high school wrestling coach. According to this article by the Associated Press, the woman has sued Hamot Medical Center in Erie, PA saying the hospital had only 16 units of blood available when her husband died of pelvic bleeding after the crash on July 24, 2008. The a [...]

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania reported a possible radiation error involving the treatment of a man for prostate cancer. According to this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, a patient underwent a prostate brachytherapy procedure on Jan. 21 to implant 65 radioactive seeds to kill cancer cells in the acorn-size gland. On a follow-up scan on Feb. 23, doctors saw that the seeds were “outside the in [...]

According to this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania was sued in federal court for allegedly refusing to accept Marcus Murray because he lacked health insurance. Murray needed emergency surgery to treat a tear in a major artery. Marcus and his wife, Jean, claim that Penn initially said it would accept Mr. Murray’s transfer from Underwood Memorial Hospital in Glou [...]

State authorities suspended Kermit B. Gosnell’s medical license, a doctor whose practice in West Philadelphia was raided by federal drug agents. According to an article on Philly.com, the suspension was issued by the State Board of Medicine and came after a search of Women’s Medical Society practice. The suspension order says the conditions of the clinic were “deplorable and unsanitary.” The order called [...]

Patients not only have their health to worry about, but they also have to concern themselves with the medical devices that are used to diagnose and treat their ailments. According to an Latimes.com report, the well publicized CT Scan malfunction which resulted in accidental radiation overdosing to patients could be a national dilemma.The FDA found that a 3rd L.A area hospital, Providence St. Joseph, has overdosed 3 [...]

Most Pennsylvanians have heard the news of a hospital in Los Angeles, California that accidentally exposed CT scans patients to dangerous levels of radiation. Officials believe that patients received up to 8 times the prescribed dosage at the Cedars-Sinai hospital. The troubling revelation has many experts proclaiming that there is too much reliance on medical machinery in the health industry and that this is a g [...]

The family of the late Latino musician Joaquin Rivera is preparing to sue Aria Health System. According to an article in the Philadelphia Daily News, the state Department of Health released a report detailing numerous staff policy violations that occurred on Nov. 28, the night Rivera had a fatal heart attack in the waiting room of Aria Health’s Frankford campus. Rivera, 63, sat dead for more than 40 minutes and w [...]