It's an increasingly common scenario in a malpractice suit: A primary care physician refers a patient to a specialist, and each assumes the other is communicating the need for follow-up or further testing.
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After a hospitalized patient was discharged, an abnormal lab result was sent to her primary care provider. That provider apparently filed the lab result in the patient's chart without recognizing the abnormality.
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Radiology errors are difficult to address in medical malpractice claims because at that point in time, everyone, including the jury, knows the patient's injury.
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Did a radiologist contact the ordering physician about a finding? If so, it is important for the radiologist to document why the call was made, when the conversation with the ordering physician occurred, and the substance of any conversation had.
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If a hearing-impaired patient asked you for a sign language interpreter, would you readily agree or ask that the patient communicate with written notes instead?
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While many believe that legal risks would be reduced as a result of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education's reduction in resident shift lengths from 30 to 16 hours, two recent studies suggest that the opposite is true.
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In 2002, a police officer took custody of a 5-week-old febrile infant girl after her parents refused to consent to a spinal tap to rule out meningitis.
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A man and his two daughters were awarded $38.6 million against two doctors for their negligence in conducting a controversial procedure under anesthesia on the patient.
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