Category: Medical & Healthcare Hospitalists throughout the Years: Growth of a Specialty...and Its Problems TASA ID: 3333 In the early 1990s, Americans started seeing a new type of doctor who spent all of his or her work hours in the hospital and never went to an office. Pediatricians, family practitioners and internists were the first to divide themselves into those doing outpatient care and "hospitalists." The original incentive for the change was simple efficiency: hospital rounds take primary care doctors away from more-lucrative office visits, and a doctor who spends all day at the hospital knows the way around and can serve patients faster. Doctors who got tired of driving from office to hospital and back were happy to have their sickest patients seen by somebody else; doctors fresh out of training, on the other hand, generally know little about managing an office but are very comfortable in the hospital environment. Read more
Category: Medical & Healthcare Lessons from a Doctor's Recent Trial Testimony TASA ID: 3656 Recently, I testified as a plaintiff internal medicine expert in a trial located in California, against a primary care doctor. This was a missed breast cancer diagnosis case, where the jury awarded a $1.9 million verdict. The jury was hung against the radiology group, despite the fact that they sent her the wrong letter in which she was congratulated on a normal mammogram, when in fact it showed suspicious breast calcifications. Read more
Category: Medical & Healthcare, Personal Injury Medical Spas Acting Beyond Their Expertise: Adverse Complications Resulting in Potential Litigation TASA ID: 3797 The very term "medi-spa" or "medical spa" raises a conundrum which the industry does not want to address. Is this a medical facility which, therefore, should meet the standard of care expected of physicians? Is this a spa facility which conjures expectations of a pampered experience consisting of massage, nourishment, meditation and the like? Or is this a combination of the two? Read more
Category: Medical & Healthcare, Personal Injury Concussion: Everything Has Changed TASA ID: 3711 Although this title may be slightly overstated, it is true that much of the way in which we identify and manage concussions has changed dramatically. This has occurred in large part as a result of recommendations provided by the International Consensus Conferences on Concussion in Sport (1). Read more
Category: Employment, Medical & Healthcare, Psychology/Psychiatry Assessing Neuro-Cognitive Complaints after Brain Injury: Distinguishing Fact from Fiction in Civil and Criminal Litigation TASA ID: 2434 Plaintiffs and other petitioners often sue for damages due to reported cognitive or emotional impairment. These cognitive impairments are often said to be the result of traumatic brain injury suffered in accidents, toxic exposures or medical procedures. Emotional impairments take the form of alleged depression or "traumatic" anxiety following such events, or those involving employment, business or similar affairs. Read more