Dallas Texas Personal Injury Law Blog

Medical Device Linked to 13 Injuries, Three Deaths

When it comes to thoracic surgery, medical device maker Covidien has voluntarily recalled its Duet TRS product, which has so far been linked to 13 patient injuries and three patient deaths. As it stands, the fact that so many patients have been injured or killed suggests that the Duet TRS is a dangerous and defective medical device.

"I used to like driving. Now my family doesn't feel safe driving with me," says an Army reservist who did a combat tour in Iraq in 2007, as James Dao reports for the New York Times.

In an analysis conducted by the insurance industry, it turns out that car accidents caused by members of the armed services - after returning home from their deployments - went up by 13 percent.

New psychological research strives to help people overcome irreversible loss after a brain injury - both the brain-injured and the non-injured spouse or partner - by focusing on recreating a new relationship rather than focusing on what was lost.

Because, as Sarah Wheaton writes for the New York Times, people facing brain injury are sometimes "profoundly changed," meaning that some injured people (and their partners) will never be able to recover what they've lost.

"We had off-going medics that said, 'Hey, I'll stay,' and new medics that said, 'I'm ready to go,'" says Brandon Hebert, as Jessica Lipscomb reports for the Houston Chronicle. Hebert is the operations manager for an ambulance company. It was these medics - some who had just worked a 12-hour shift - who rushed to the scene of a massive car wreck pileup on Texas 73 early Thursday morning.

Seldom do accidents like these occur: A woman, 58-year-old Edith McFarland, is injured 25 years ago, losing her leg in a hit-and-run car wreck that put her in a wheelchair. Now, as Teresa Masterson reports for NBC 10, the same woman is killed from another hit-and-run.

Last week, Wesley J. Smith wrote a piece for the Secondhand Smoke blog about hospitalists. Hospitalists are doctors who manage the care of hospitalized patients, from admittance to discharge. A hospitalist's practice centers on the business of patient care in the hospital itself, rather than on a specific disease, like oncologists.

Smith writes about the factors that are contributing to a rise in medical malpractice committed by hospitalists.

The American Tort Reform Foundation seems to be defense lawyers' answer to trial lawyers (like us) who pursue justice in courts of law. Advocates of tort reform claim that some courthouses allow for significant abuse - just take a look at the Foundation's "Judicial Hellholes" report, which gives a big thumbs up to things like loser pays legislation.

Loser pays, as one example, is legislation that is supposed to help cut down on frivolous lawsuits by requiring the plaintiff (like someone injured in an automobile accident) to pay court costs and the other side's legal fees if the case is dismissed.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell's medical practice included severing the spinal cords of babies born alive, as Kathy Matheson reports for Mercury News, as well as running a "brisk" prescription pill refill business, which brought in thousands - in fact, Gosnell added a second phone line to handle the increased phone calls from patients asking for prescription drug refills.

Talk about a case of medical malpractice.