After the actress Natasha Richardson died in 2009 from an epidural hematoma that media reports emphasized could have been diagnosed with a head CT scan, EPs were flooded with requests for the test, even for patients with very minor head injuries, recalls John Burton, MD, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, VA.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Florida's cap does not violate the federal Constitution, but punted whether the cap violates the Florida Constitution to the Florida Supreme Court.
This is the second of a two-part series on liability risks involving ordering of diagnostic tests in the ED. This month, we report on possible lawsuits for future cancers, strategies if patients threaten to sue because a test wasn't ordered, and liability risks specific to pediatric patients.
Drowning is defined as asphyxia or suffocation from submersion/immersion in a liquid medium.
Although most critically ill patients require only short periods of respiratory support, a minority require prolonged mechanical ventilation (PMV).
Supported by robust data from numerous clinical trials, low-tidal-volume ventilation is now standard-of-care in managing patients with acute lung injury (ALI) or the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
Participants in this study were 100 patients/surrogates and their physicians in a 26-bed medical ICU located in an academic medical center.
