Articles related to LEGAL MATTERS

“There have been a handful of cases which have now held, for one reason or another, that a third party can pursue a claim against a health care practitioner if they were injured as a result of that health care practitioner’s negligence to his or her own patient. What does this mean practically speaking? It opens the door for more lawsuits, lawsuits from people who were never your patient, but who may be impacted by a prescribing decision you make for your patient.”

The plaintiff, an emergency medicine physician, filed the lawsuit for wrongful termination against EmCare’s Kansas and Missouri subsidiaries, alleging that he was terminated because he complained about dangerous and illegal understaffing at the Overland Park emergency department. On March 2, 2021, the Missouri Supreme Court declined to intervene in the case, finalizing the judgment in the plaintiff’s favor.

That’s the question in this highly unusual case, in which the plaintiff made an emergency motion for a mistrial, arguing that the jury witnessing the defendant coming to the aid of one of their fellow jurors may have prejudiced the jury. Read this fascinating story from MPR and ask yourself whether the situation had influenced the verdict in any way or resulted in a denial of a fair trial.

The Journal of Clinical Oncology has a heartfelt account of one family’s struggle to access medical records after the death of a child from a brain tumor. Closing down online access to medical records is a common practice at hospitals and healthcare clinics following the death of a patient, often to the pain of family members who still have questions and seek answers.

BMJ’s investigation findings raise questions about data integrity and regulatory oversight concerning Pfizer’s vaccine trial. A regional director told the BMJ that Pfizer falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported in the pivotal phase III trial.

An extremely interesting case in New York is examined in this article, which chronicles a female patient suffering from multiple sclerosis and her suit against her neurologist for prescribing a new medication that her attorney feels goes beyond medical malpractice and into fraud under NY’s General Business Law 349: “deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any business, trade or commerce or in the furnishing of any service in this state are hereby declared unlawful.”