Emergency Medicine - Adult and Pediatric
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Updates in Pediatric Trauma, Part I
MONOGRAPH: New advances in diagnostic evaluation and treatment for the No. 1 cause of death and disability in children and adolescents.
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Misplaced NG tubes a major patient safety risk
Misplaced nasogastric and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tubes pose a serious threat to patient safety and a liability risk for hospitals. New technology might improve the detection of misplaced tubes.
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Failure to diagnose infection causes toddler death and yields verdict of $1.72 million
Plaintiffs’ 3-month-old daughter was taken to the hospital with a high fever and elevated pulse rate. The ED physician diagnosed an ear infection and discharged the infant with a prescription for antibiotics. Days later she was diagnosed with pneumococcal meningitis, hypoxic brain injury, and hydrocephalus. She lived for 20 more months. Plaintiffs sued the hospital and the ED physician, and they won a verdict of joint and several liability for $1.7 million.
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Urinary Tract Infection
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are common in the emergency department. In fact, UTIs were the most common bacterial infection encountered in ambulatory settings in 2007 and the most common primary diagnosis for women visiting the emergency department.
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State Medical Board Complaint Can Fuel ED Med/Mal Suit, and Vice Versa: Don’t “Go It Alone”
It’s difficult to imagine most emergency physicians (EPs) choosing to defend themselves in a malpractice lawsuit. However, many respond to state medical board investigations without legal representation. “Many medical board complaints end up being more serious than medical malpractice lawsuits,” says Ellen M. Voss, JD, a medical malpractice defense attorney at Williams Kastner in Portland, OR.
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EPs Seeing Many More Incidental Findings: Take Steps to Reduce Liability
Failure to notify patients and their primary care providers of incidental radiology findings “definitely poses significant medicolegal liability for the emergency physician (EP),” according to Sayon Dutta, MD, an attending physician in the emergency department (ED) at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
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Will EPs Be Dismissed — or Get ‘Stuck’ in the Claim? These Are Determining Factors
Understandably, emergency physicians (EPs) who believe that allegations of malpractice are unfounded don’t want to suffer through litigation one minute longer than necessary. However, getting “out” of a claim, regardless of the merits of the case against the EP, is often no easy task.
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Peer Review: How Protected Are You?
While it has definite advantages, peer review presents unique and significant challenges, particularly for the individual provider.
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Missing Documentation on Evolving High-risk Conditions? It Will Complicate Defense of Medical/Malpractice Suit
Lack of documentation on patients with high-risk-conditions often results in the settlement of otherwise defensible claims against emergency physicians (EPs), according to Douglas Segan, MD, JD, FACEP, a medical-legal consultant based in Woodmere, NY.
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Warning: ED Peer Review Materials Aren’t Always Protected from Discovery
Many emergency physicians (EPs) assume that all aspects of the peer review or quality improvement processes involving emergency department (ED) care are automatically protected from discovery during malpractice litigation. This is not necessarily the case.