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Now that's a bombshell...

In a trial in Pennsylvania involving the misdiagnosis of a child's bowel obstruction, the risk manager of a hospital testified that she provided altered documents to the plaintiff's lawyer.

The chief executive officer and another top official of a city hospital knowingly gave dozens of altered documents to plaintiffs' attorneys in a medical malpractice case, according to court testimony.

Ann Marie Zimmerman, risk manager of Mercy Hospital, testified that she provided 67 altered documents at the direction of a hospital attorney, even though she, the attorney and CEO James May knew the documents had information deleted from them.

Not a good position for the Hospital.  Even if the judge directs the jury to ignore the information, it is going to leave a bad impression about that hospital with the jury.

Source:  Mcall.com

Posted by David Austin on September 27, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Canadian Personal Injury Lawyer

Ran across a decent Canadian legal blog the other day.  http://www.injurylawblog.squarespace.com/

Run by David Brannen, a lawyer in Nova Scotia.  Check it out.

Posted by David Austin on September 23, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Spray on Cells for Burn Victims

One of the more painful and serious injuries you can have is a burn.  Treating burns has always been difficult because it involved using good skin from one area of your body to help heal the burned area.  This online video I found at RedNova talks about "Spray on skin cells" as a new way to treat burns.

Rednova.com Spray on Cells for Burn victims

Posted by David Austin on September 7, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Emergency Rooms and Pulmonary Embolism

2/3 of pulmonary embolism cases are misdiagnosed. Over 600,000 cases of pulmonary embolism occur every year and only 1/3 are ever diagnosed correctly.   The problem with missing this diagnosis is that your chances of surviving a second pulmonary embolism are very low.

Symptoms:

  • Shortness of breath (dyspnea)
  • Chest pain
  • Some sort of shock (sometimes low blood pressure)
  • Syncope (fainting)

Diagnostic tests used to find Pulmonary Embolism:

  • Chest x-ray
  • Sometimes you will see the doctors rule out a DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis)
  • Blood gases to check for oxygen levels

Posted by David Austin on September 7, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack