Pittsburgh Medical Malpractice Law Blog

A $39,000 fine against the Department of Veterans Affairs was handed down last Monday by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for radiation safety violations at its prostate cancer program at 12 VA hospitals nationwide. This fine comes only months after the VA was fined $277,500 for failures in the prostate Brachytherapy program at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center (see our older post), where numerous veterans received incorrect doses of radiation for over six years. This initial discovery prompted the agency to investigate other VA hospitals using Brachytherapy, a procedure to kill tumor cells with radiation. It's only a matter of time before some of these hospitals start seeing medical malpractice and negligence suits due to these findings.

The fines against the VA stem primarily from two violations. The first concerns the VA's Brachytherapy program's lack of procedures to ensure the implants followed a preoperative plan. The second was levied for failure to notify the NRC within 24 hours of a failed procedure. The NRC believes "these violations should have been identified by the VA during their own independent inspections."

According to a recent New York Times article, two new studies reveal that more doctor's need to carefully weigh the risks and benefits of exposing their patients to radiation. The two studies were published Tuesday in the journal Radiology. One study found that "certain nuclear-based breast imaging exams that involve injecting radioactive material into patients expose woman to far higher doses of radiation than regular mammography, increasing their risk of cancer in vulnerable organs beyond the breast, like kidneys, bladder or ovaries." Furthermore, the United States population's annual radiation dose from medical procedures has significantly increased between 1980 and 2006.

For some doctors, its regular practice to consult a radiation chart that lists the amount of radiation exposure that results from certain tests before ordering a diagnostic test that involved radiation. Doctors then consider the individual patient's total past exposure, and weights the risks and benefits of each test and any alternative approaches to radiation exposure.

According to a report released last week by the Oregon Patient Safety Commission, at least 32 patients died as a result of preventable errors in Oregon hospitals last year.

The report detailed 136 reports of Oregon hospital negligence in 2009. In 22 percent of those cases, patients experienced minimal or no detectable harm but half of the incidents resulted in serious injury or death. In nine cases reported, the surgical team operated on the patient's wrong bodily part or performed the wrong procedure on the wrong patient. Surgeons accidentally left objects in patients 21 times, despite the commission's continued efforts to eliminating this type of error from occurring.

Which regard to incidents involving objects left in surgical patients, Oregon hospitals have seen a decline in this type of error from a peak of 50 reported incidents in 2007, but the number continues to hover around 40 incidents each year since 2002.

At least a dozen major pharmaceutical and medical device companies are under investigation by the federal government and securities regulatory agencies as to whether these companies made illegal payments to doctors and health officials in foreign companies to push their products to patients.

In recent years, federal officials have charged drug manufacturers and medical device companies for making payments to "encourage doctors abroad to order or prescribe their products." According to a recent New York Times article, U.S. pharmaceutical companies routinely hire practicing doctors as consultants to market drugs and devices to their colleagues at medical conventions and gatherings. These practices are legal in the U.S. as long as companies do not pay doctors to write prescriptions for their products. However, in the rest of the world, most doctors are government employees and consulting arrangements which are legal in the U.S. may violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Especially if the payments are large in size and these arrangements are not disclosed to the governments.

A Pennsylvania couple has initiated a medical malpractice suit against the Charleston Area Medical Center after a camping trip injury became infected after treatment. The suit names Dr. Molly John, Dr. Brandson Robinson and the West Virginia University Medical Corporation as defendants in the suit.

According to the suit, Matthew Summerfield was on a camping trip in the Charleston area and was involved in an off-road dirt bike accident on July 8, 2008. The accident occurred when Summerfield fell off his bike, landed on his left leg and was dragged by the motorcycle on a rock-strewn dirt road. As a result, Summerfield experienced complex lacerations on his left medial knee and experienced significant amount of tissue loss. Additionally, he had an adjacent lateral laceration with tissue loss and moderate bleeding.

A California nursing home was recently fined $100,000 for medical negligence after one of its patients died from a brain injury. The hospital was cited for failing to prevent a patient from falling twice and failing to treat the patient's brain injuries sustained from the falls.

The patient, an 85-year-old man with a heart condition and diabetes, was reportedly suppose to be using a walker and was to be supervised at all times when walking. According to an investigation launched by the state, they found that the Pilgrim Haven Health Facility in Los Altos failed to do just that. State investigators found that the staff failed to install an electronic fall monitor as ordered by the patient's doctor and failed to ensure that the patient's walker was within reach.

According to a recent Los Angeles Times article, two California hospitals are currently being investigated for over exposing its patents to excessive levels of radiation during CT scans, ultimately putting its patients at risk for dangerous brain injuries. Officials at the hospitals reported that CT scanners, manufactured by Toshiba and used by both hospitals, were programmed according to Toshiba's specifications.

Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center and Bakersfield Memorial Hospital are the latest cases of a list of California hospitals where radiation overdoses occurred during CT brain perfusion scans. In these two cases, both hospitals contacted Toshiba to clearly understand the protocols for safely using their units and used the instructions and specifications provided by the manufacturer. According to reports, nearly 16 patients at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital received excessive radiation "although the dosage guidelines provided by Toshiba were strictly followed."

There have been a long list of medication error cases involving mis-prescription of pharmaceutical drugs but how far reaching is the industries' influence on drug trials and research.

According to recent analysis of drug trials published Monday and reported by the Los Angeles Times, drug studies and trials that were funded by the pharmaceutical industry were much more likely to yield positive results and show the drug worked than independent or university funded studies.

The analysis of 546 drug trials found that pharmaceutical funded trials reported positive outcomes 85 percent of the time compared with 50 percent of the time for government-funded trials. Additionally, studies conducted by nonprofit or non-federal organizations received positive results 72 percent of the time.