Quick Answer: Does My Child’s Erb’s Palsy Mean I Can File a Lawsuit? If your child developed Erb’s palsy during birth, you can usually take action when: The medical team failed to evaluate signs that the baby could be unusually large before labor began. A doctor improperly used a vacuum or forceps and forcefully pulled […]
Category Archives: Medical Malpractice
What Causes Erb’s Palsy at Birth, and When Is It Medical Malpractice?
Quick Answer: What Causes Erb’s Palsy at Birth? Erb’s palsy is caused at birth by the stretching, tearing, or rupturing of the brachial plexus nerves in a baby’s neck and shoulder. Erb’s palsy occurs at birth when the brachial plexus nerves between a baby’s neck and shoulder are stretched or damaged. Parents may first notice […]
When Rehabilitation Goes Wrong: Rehab Hospital Injuries
Injury rehabilitation facilities are intended to be a place of healing and recovery. People that go to rehab are typically struggling with the consequences of a severe injury or recovering from a procedure, so the fact that so many people who seek help in rehab actually end up suffering more harm is alarming. A recent […]
Psychological Issues Arising from Cerebral Palsy
Cerebral palsy, or CP, arises from some type of brain injury or malformation that can occur either while in the womb, during birth, or after birth. CP actually describes a group of disorders that impair movement control, known as “palsies.” CP is a not-uncommon childhood chronic disability that develops by the age of two or […]
Opioids at Crisis Level in Maryland
Our state is number one, but in a disturbing way: Maryland’s hospitalization rate due to opioids is the highest in the U.S. New federal data demonstrates the depth and breadth of Maryland’s opioid problem. Ten years of statistics from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality show that tens of thousands of people in […]
No-Fault Birth Injury Fund: Yea or Nay?
For the second time in two years, a state legislature task force has recommended that the Maryland legislature create a no-fault birth injury fund. The most recent endorsement occurred in December, 2015. Unlike the previous year, this time the task force included both insurance and legal representatives. The proposed fund, which would be similar to […]
Medical Misdiagnoses Put You at Risk
In September, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued a landmark report that characterized incorrect medical diagnosis as a huge blind spot in our health care system. No one truly knows how many people have their medical care compromised by wrong or delayed diagnoses, but it’s clear that […]
Jury Awards $23 Million in Punitive Damages Because of Depakote
Abbott Laboratories was recently ordered to pay $23 million in punitive damages to a child whose family claimed Abbott’s drug Depakote caused the Minnesota girl’s birth defects. It is the first time that a verdict has been found against the drug company for that medication. A St. Louis, Missouri, state-court jury awarded the additional, punitive […]
When Doctors Miss the Mark
A report recently released by CRICO Strategies, a division of the Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions, focuses on medical malpractice cases brought because of diagnostic errors. CRICO maintains a database with information about more than 300,000 malpractice cases, both open and closed. For this study, they analyzed more than 23,000 malpractice cases […]
Fighting Lung Cancer In Maryland
What is the most deadly form of cancer in the U.S.? Lung cancer. In fact, lung cancer accounts for about one-third of all cancer deaths — more than breast cancer, colon cancer and prostate cancer combined, according to the American Cancer Society. And what causes lung cancer? 90% of lung cancers develop from the use […]