Author: Ring of Fire Staff

An appellate court in Florida refused  today to dismiss a claim for the wrongful death of a young pregnant woman while she was in the care of a mental health facility known as Park Place.  The Defendant, Osceola Mental Health, Inc., sought to have the case thrown out because the woman’s family did not sue under the Florida Medical Malpractice laws. The patient, 25 year old Farrah Krystle Jean, went to the hospital with complaints of pain.  While there, she was transferred involuntarily to Park Place.  The involuntary commitment was done under Florida’s Baker Act, a law that allows...

Imagine the surprise of the many people charged with the crime of driving under the influence of Ambien, when they took the medication long before they drove and assumed it was out of their system. A new announcement today from the FDA demonstrates that these drivers may have indeed been innocent all along. The announcement warns that dosages of Zolpidem containing products like Ambien should be lowered because the drug stays in the system longer than previously disclosed by the manufacturer. The FDA also took the opportunity to point out that Ambien like drugs can affect the ability to...

“Never Event” is a universally recognized term in the medical profession referring to something that should never happen during surgery, such as a retained-foreign-body (an instrument or sponge left in the body) or a wrong-site, wrong patient, or wrong procedure surgery. According to a recently released Johns Hopkins’ medical malpractice study, “never events” occur approximately 4000 times per year in the United States: –  retained-foreign-body occurs 39/week; –  wrong procedure occurs 20/week; and –  wrong-site/patient occurs 20/week. This astonishing number only further substantiates a fact that we all should already know:  physicians, just like the rest of us, are...

Although it comes as no surprise that an inexperienced surgeon may be more likely to commit medical negligence in the performance of a surgical procedure, the surprising thing is that it happens at all, given the stringent training, licensing and credentialing requirements for surgeons.  Nonetheless, surgical inexperience continues to be associated with poor patient outcomes. Researchers have identified a number of factors associated with bad surgical outcomes. In addition to inexperience, they cite low hospital volume for some surgeries, excessive workload, fatigue, lack of optimal technology, poor supervision of staff and trainees, poor communication, emergency circumstances and even the...

The President has an opportunity to affect the makeup of the federal judicial branch through his power of appointment, yet he may not be using that power to the fullest.  There are 874 federal judicial slots which are filled upon appointment by the President and confirmation by the Senate.  That number includes all the judges who serve at the district trial court level, the circuit courts of appeal, the Court of International Trade and the nine members of the United States Supreme Court.  According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, there are currently 75 judicial vacancies, which...