When your doctor in New Jersey, or anywhere in the country, recommends surgery, you not only trust their opinion, but you trust their expertise in performing the surgery. No one expects to go into surgery to have an organ repaired and to come out with other...
Surgical Errors
New Jersey plantiiffs can see compensation for medical losses
A St. Louis man suffering from medical errors committed by a VA Medical Center was recently awarded $8.3 million by a federal judge. A father of three, the plaintiff is now paralyzed and mostly non-communicative. The award was split between the plaintiff ($6.8...
Preventable medical mistakes: an enduring research focus
It is certainly one of the medical industry's central frustrations that preventable medical errors recur in hospitals nationally, including in New Jersey.Over and over and over again.That they do is especially disconcerting because the error rate for things like...
An obvious concern: surgical objects left inside patients’ bodies
Calling it "a well-known problem, but one that can be prevented," an official with the Joint Commission -- a nonprofit entity that accredits more than 20,000 health care organizations across the country -- recently put the spotlight on so-called "unintended retention...
FDA, others increasingly focused on robotic surgery claims
We last reported on robotic surgery in the United States in a September 5, 2013, blog post. We noted therein a related comment from Martin A. Makary, a noted doctor and medical commentator. In discussing the scope and dimensions of surgical error in connection with...
Study: accuracy lacking in reporting of robotic surgery errors
"We still don't really know what the true answer is," says Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine surgical professor Martin A. Makary.That is unfortunate, given that the question pertains to surgical error and the number of mistakes that are made when surgeons...
Despite surgical checklists, preventable errors persist
Few consumers and hospital patients in New Jersey or elsewhere across the country would credit the medical industry with a fool-proof safety standard and performance record. Most people know -- anecdotally, through diverse media reports and, perhaps, from their own...
Technology in the operating room: a double-edged sword
Some industries are comparatively high-tech, and there is certainly no disputing that the medical industry is among the most technologically oriented of all work realms. Hospitals in New Jersey and all other states across the country employ ultra-sophisticated...
Focus: fine tuning training hours for resident MDs
It wasn't all that long ago that many voices within the medical industry were lamenting what was construed as the unduly long hours spent by beginning surgical resident on duty. The specific complaint was that sleep-lacking doctors were roaming hospitals across the...
Defendant plays blame game in seminal robot surgery lawsuit
The stakes are notably high in a medical negligence lawsuit alleging surgical error in an operation using a da Vinci robotic system. After a trial lasting more than a month, a 12-member jury in Washington State is weighing the evidence, and its verdict will be...