New York Personal Injury Blog | Lever & Stolzenberg, LLP Legal Blog

NYC Hospital Wins Cancerous Kidney Medical Malpractice Lawsuit

A Queen woman lost a NYC medical malpractice lawsuit regarding her late husband, who received a cancerous kidney in a transplant surgery in 2002. The NY hospital that won the lawsuit argued that it had informed their patient and monitored the situation.

Man Loses NY Medical Malpractice Suit Over Wife’s Cosmetic Surgery Death

A New York woman died two days after having a facelift surgery that caused her to go into cardiac arrest. While her husband lost a NY medical malpractice lawsuit against the nurse in the case, he won a settlement against the doctor, who has a history of botched cosmetic surgeries.

A Patient Dies, and Then the Anguish of Litigation

medical malpractice lawsuit cancer emotional drain

Health care reform silent on malpractice

To the Editor:

The News’s recent story on medical malpractice missed the point. While it correctly cited data that medical malpractice claims make up only one-fifth of one percent of all health care costs in this country, it failed to discuss the role medical errors play in our health care system.

According to a landmark study by the National Academy of Sciences, mistakes by doctors and other health care providers take the lives of as many as 98,000 Americans every year – and cause hugely expensive complications in hundreds of thousands of other cases. Any serious discussion of medical malpractice must begin with reducing its frequency, not denying compensation to its victims.

If any subject is given too little attention in the health care reform debate, it is patient safety. There are simple, proven ways to prevent medical errors. The challenge is persuading health care providers to adopt them. Many new protocols and safety measures resulted from the National Academy of Sciences report. But health care experts agree that we are nowhere near the report's goal of reducing medical errors by half in 10 years. Curtailing patients' rights to seek redress for negligence would only remove an established incentive for improvement.

Do We Need Tort Reform In Medical Malpractice Context?

In recent years, New York’s medical community has decried hikes in
medical malpractice insurance premiums. Describing the premium
increases as “devastating,” the medical lobby has claimed that the costs of
liability coverage are driving doctors out of New York State. At least one
doctor group has also charged that “a wildly unpredictable medical liability
adjudication system” is the driving force in increasing premiums. The
result, they say, is that New Yorkers have increasing difficulty in accessing
care from the so-called “high risk” specialists, such as obstetricians and
neurosurgeons.
But are these claims true? According to the federal governmental data
reviewed for a mind shattering recent report, the answer is a resounding “NO.”
This report’s overall finding is that, based on the actual litigation payments
made by the state’s doctors over a number of years, New York’s
malpractice system appears to be remarkably consistent, stable and fair.
In fact, NPDB data shows that payouts have been reducing since 2006.
Federal law requires that all medical malpractice payment information be
reported to the government’s National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB).
The NPDB’s Public Use Data File is the only publicly-available,
comprehensive malpractice database in the nation.
While the NPDB is prohibited by law from releasing the names of
individual doctors who have paid malpractice payments, it does release
aggregated information about those payments.

Study Results Raise Questions About Vertebroplasty For Patients With Osteoporotic Spinal Compression Fractures; Is it Malpractice?

Have You Had Surgery Using Spinal Cement?

Each year, as many as 250,000 people in the United States suffer vertebral fractures, which are small breaks or cracks in the bones of the spine. Even minor falls, missteps, bumps into countertops or other hard surfaces, and other every day accidents can cause these types of painful injuries. Most victims of spinal fractures are elderly and have been diagnosed with the bone-weakening disease osteoporosis.

In many cases, surgeries to repair spinal fractures use products called spinal cement to fill in the cracks until the broken bone can regenerate on its own. However, the use of these products has been associated with several deaths and severe injuries in patients. Also, recent medical research has found that patients who had a specific type of spinal fracture surgery fared no better afterwards than patients who received a placebo surgery.

Therefore, there are serious questions about whether vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty, and other types of spinal fracture surgery that use spinal cement are necessary and effective in relieving back pain cause by vertebral fractures.

While it may be difficult to prove in court that merely performing vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty, and other types of spinal fracture surgery alone constitutes malpractice, even in light of the recent publications indicating that the procedures  are no more effective than placebos, the same cannot be said for those patients who suffered serious injury and even death after undergoing such operations. 

We are actually representing one client who suffered severe cardiac arrest, resulting in major open heart surgery, after undergoing this purportedly "minimally invasive" surgery.  It appears that in these cases where patients are significantly injured after undergoing these procedures the injury occurs because the cement is allowed (negligently) to enter the blood stream.  The use of spinal cement has been shown to cause heart and lung damage, fatal drops in blood pressure, and other problems.

If you or a loved one has undergone back surgery using spinal cement to repair a vertebral fracture, you may be at risk of suffering life-threatening injuries and complications. If a loved one has died as the result of surgery using spinal cement, you and your family may qualify for damages to compensate you for the wrongful death.

At Lever & Stolzenberg LLP our experienced personal injury attorneys are dedicated to helping people who are injured by spinal cement and other dangerous medical products. To schedule a free, confidential legal consultation, contact us today by calling 914.288.9191 or completing the case inquiry form on this page.