Philadelphia Injury Attorney Blog

As strange as it seems, surgery performed on the wrong side of a patient’s body is more common than one would think. In fact, due to a recent publication resulting from Freedom of Information requests, many more revelations of surgery performed on the wrong side of the body are being publicly acknowledged. While it is unquestionable that mistakes may occur during medical procedures, there simply is no excuse for wrong site surgeries. Simply stated, wrong site surgeries are always the result of carelessness, poor pre-operative planning, and an obvious lack of institutional control.

As an experienced Philadelphia medical malpractice attorney whose law firm has successfully litigated wrong site surgery cases for over three decades, we consider this medical error to be the most outrageous type of insult to the patient due to the fact that it forever changes the patient’s life with irreversible injuries and is so easily prevented.
Surprisingly the reporting of wrong site surgery is not mandatory in most states.

Recently when I went in for a minor surgical procedure on my elbow, I met with a doctor briefly after an IV sedative had been introduced prior to entering the operating room. The doctor asked me what I was there for and I asked told him “Why don’t you tell me?" attempting to have him acknowledge the site of the surgery so that I could confirm the same. Obviously at this stage of the game, even I was in an intoxicated state and under the influence of a sedative. Wrong site surgeries account for almost 15% of all reported medical mistakes and in many of the wrong site surgery cases we have investigated and litigated, many of the defendants, doctors, and nurses point the finger at each other without immediately acknowledging a mistake or properly assuming responsibility.

If you or a loved one has been a victim of wrong site surgery, why not put a team of experienced wrong site surgery and medical malpractice lawyers to work for you. Of course, we always offer a free, no obligation consultation. Recently, the accomplished Philadelphia medical malpractice firm of Reiff and Bily have joined forces with the legendary medical malpractice team of the Beasley Firm to create the Beasley Reiff Law Group. Together our attorneys have been awarded billions of dollars since the mid-1950's. For more information, contact us toll free at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com.

The City of Philadelphia is currently dealing with an EMS crisis where lives are being put at risk due to the fact that EMS units are still arriving late to calls nearly 40% of the time. It is an excepted standard that EMS units should arrive at the scene of an emergency in less than 9 minutes. Several years ago, City of Philadelphia audits indicated that EMS units were only achieving the standard 60% of the time. City Controller, Alan Butkovitz, stated “The City is putting lives at risk by failing to do all that it can to have EMS units arrive on time. The response time is still well below the 90% industry benchmark." Butkovitz stated that a major factor contributing to EMS inability to arrive on time is the overwhelming demand on the EMS system along with an inadequate number of paramedics. The City Controller made a number of recommendations to address this situation. However, of paramount concern is that the City of Philadelphia and Fire Department must take all necessary and reasonable steps to improve EMS response time and to increase the number of paramedics available to staff EMS vehicles.

More and more businesses and health services are supplying medication offering injections or diagnosing and treating patients with doctors who really are not medical doctors but rather nurses with Ph.D.’s. Often these Ph.D. “doctors" are paid less than medical doctors. While there is no doubt that there are advanced practice nurses with Ph.D.’s that have excellent and fine medical skills, this is not always explained to individuals who seek medical advice or treatment and assume that the same is being provided by a medical doctor. Many clinics have nurse Ph.D.’s who are identified as doctors performing medical exams, and as an experienced Philadelphia medical malpractice attorney for over thirty years, I predict that this is something that will become more and more common in a tightened economy and as big business has a greater role in providing healthcare.

Interestingly enough, researchers show that the new Ph.D. degrees maintained by nurses who call themselves doctors have not brought higher fees to these mostly lesser paid providers from insurers from seeing patients. Certainly and understandably one can understand the frustration from physicians with medical degrees who have spent years of intensive study only to have confusion over the use of the term doctor and services performed by someone using the term doctor.

As an experienced Pennsylvania medical malpractice attorney who has been intimately involved in claims of malpractice against the healthcare industry for over three decades, I believe that clear communications must be made to the consumer about the correct educational background and medical degree of the “doctor" administering the services and that legislators ought to be more involved in defining the roles of these healthcare providers.

If you or a loved one has been injured as the result of medical malpractice, contact one of our experienced Philadelphia medical malpractice lawyers for a free, no obligation consultation. For more information, contact us toll free at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com.

For over a decade and a half, an online database that anonymously tracked physician health records of malpractice, medical errors, and medical discipline was available online to researchers and policymakers, as well as others seeking access to this information.

As an experienced Pennsylvania medical malpractice and defective product attorney who has spent decades litigating these claims, I believe that the reporting of medical malpractice errors and healthcare should become transparent and available to those citizens who take the time to perform independent research in order to become more informed about making an important decision. Loss of access to this information presents a problem to patient safety experts, researchers, and public policy analysts who identify important trends and problems involving delivery of healthcare by physicians.

As an experienced Philadelphia medical malpractice attorney, I believe patient safety and research should always be a priority and that consumers should always have the ability to perform research in order to make an informed decision. Additionally, the removal of this information makes it difficult to make informed public policy decisions concerning malpractice, or to perform peer review on medical licensing. I can think of no good reason to not make this information available.

If you or a loved one has been the victim of medical malpractice, please contact one of our experienced Philadelphia medical malpractice lawyers for a free, no obligation consultation. We have been representing catastrophically injured victims and their families for over three decades. For more information, contact us toll free at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com.