I may not be clairvoyant. But I know one family that will receive a gigantic check soon. A 29-year-old woman had been in a persistent vegetative state for about ten years. She was involved in a near drowning incident. Unbeknownst to the staff at Hacienda Healthcare, a long-term care facility, the patient was pregnant. She … Read more
Every now and then you read a piece about life in the medical trenches that fully hits the mark. Dr. Rada Jones is an Emergency Physician who did precisely that. She penned the 68 Laws of the ER. The best way for me to do it justice is to present it as is without editorial … Read more
The answer is likely yes. More on that shortly. One role of the physician is to relieve suffering. Adult patients, who are mentally competent and terminally ill, sometimes implore their physicians to help them achieve a more peaceful death to alleviate either actual or impending suffering. The US Supreme Court in Washington versus Glucksberg tackled this issue and refrained from finding … Read more
Most physicians treat it as a privilege. They appreciate being given the responsibility of earning a patient’s trust and caring for them. In reality, once a physician has passed the requirements to practice medicine, it is a qualified right. If the physician conforms to established norms, they are allowed to continue practice. The vast majority … Read more
What is considered the practice of medicine? In the seminal 1964 Supreme Court case which litigated the threshold definition of obscenity, Justice Potter Stewart opined: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [“hard-core pornography”], and perhaps I could never succeed in … Read more
Medical Justice takes aim squarely at deterring frivolous litigation. And we provide remedies for those unjustly sucked into such lawsuits. Ten years ago we ran a contest for the Most Frivolous Lawsuit. The “winning” defendant received a free year of membership in Medical / Dental Justice. We decided to run that same contest one more … Read more
Medical Justice takes aim squarely at deterring frivolous litigation. And we provide remedies for those unjustly sucked into such lawsuits. Ten years ago, we ran a contest for the Most Frivolous Lawsuit. The “winning” defendant received a free year of membership in Medical / Dental Justice. We decided to run that same contest one more … Read more
This could not be an easy conversation. “The eggs or embryos we have been storing may have been lost.” Two fertility clinics recently reported technical problems with storage tanks that may have damaged frozen eggs and embryos. Many of these are from women and couples struggling with infertility. Or they may have anticipated future problems – for example, banking eggs … Read more
Most patients want to receive care close to where they live. Patients also want the option to travel to centers of excellence, if necessary. Walmart has flipped that model on its head for its employees. Effective January 2019, Walmart will mandate its employees travel to high-profile healthcare systems for spinal procedures. Such systems include the … Read more
Learning how to do a proper history and physical serves as the foundation for training young physicians. This includes learning how to examine sensitive parts of the body. A rectal exam. A pelvic exam. When I was training, paid models served as teachers when we learned how to do a pelvic exam. They had done … Read more
