Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice (Health Care Liability)

There are a unique set of rules applicable to Tennessee medical malpractice cases.  (Note: the Tennessee Legislature has decreed that such cases must now be called "health care liability actions.)

In a health care liability action in Tennessee, both the liability of the health care provider and the link between the negligent action or omission ("causation") must be proved by one or more expert witnesses in the vast, vast majority of cases.   The liability expert must 1) practice in a field of medicine that makes his or her testimony pertinent to the case; 2) practice in that field of medicine in Tennessee or a contiguous state in the year preceding the incident; and 3) be familiar with the regularly accepted level of medical practice in the community where the incident took place or a similar community. 

The causation expert must also meet the geographic requirements mentioned above.  However, this expert does not need to know the standard of care in the community where the incident occurred if his or his expert opinion is limited to causation issues.

A Tennessee medical malpractice claim, now called a "health care liability action," should only be filed by a lawyer experienced in health care liability litigation.  I would never recommend that a non-lawyer file such a case.

There are many, many reasons for this, not the least of which are that way that one files a lawsuit against a health care provider.  Health care providers have persuaded the Tennessee General Assembly to erect artificial barriers to lawsuits against them.  A couple of those barriers have to do with how the lawsuit is initiated.  First, almost always pre-lawsuit notice must be given to the health car provider in a very specific way.  Second, when the lawsuit is filed a "certificate of good faith" must be filed.  Once again, Tennessee law has very specific requirements for a certificate of good faith.

The failure to strictly comply with Tennessee law on  these matters will result in dismissal of the case.  Dismissal of the case will  result in the imposition of financial sanctions against  person who did not comply with the law by initiating the case.

Local news outlets are reporting that some eleven patients who had lumbar epidural steroid injections at Nashville’s Saint Hospital have contracted meningitis.

Meningitis is an inflammation of the meninges, which is the membrane surrounding your brain and spinal cord.  Usually meningitis is caused by a viral infection, but it can also be caused by bacterial or fungal infections.  Meningitis can be deadly, and news reports indicate that two people have died from meningitis contracted at the Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgery Center.

The Center was voluntarily closed on September 20, 2012. A total of 737 patients who had lumbar epidural steroid injections between July 30, 2012 and September 20, 2012 have been notified .

As Tennessee medical malpractice lawyers, we are often asked to evaluate claims against doctors who practice in the specialty of internal medicine.   (For an understanding of what is necessary to prove a medical malpractice claim in Tennessee, read our Legal Guide titled "Understanding Medical Malpractice Cases in Tennessee." 

The Doctor’s Company, a insurance company that insures doctors for medical malpractice claims, has published a study that looks at past medical malpractice claims against internists.  Here are some of the results of the study:

• 58 percent of the allegations in these claims were related to diagnosis
• 23 percent were related to medical treatment
• 9.5 percent were related to improper medication management,
• 2.2 percent involved ordering errors
• 1.6 percent involved patient monitoring
• 5.7 percent were miscellaneous.

The diagnosis related claims were further broken down into two separate categories – failure to diagnose (79%)  and delay in diagnosis (21%).  The largest number of failure to diagnose claims were cardiovascular disorders, while the great number of claims in the delay in diagnosis category had to do with delay in diagnosing tumors.

Medication errors hurt and kill many people every year.  The Institute of Medicine reports that there are 1,500,000 preventable adverse drug events per year.   The conservative estimate of the costs of these errors is $3.5 billion, not including the costs such as lost earnings and the pain and suffering experienced by the victims.

These errors occur in doctor’s offices, hospitals, nursing homes, ambulatory surgery centers, and virtually every other type of health care setting.

My very first medical malpractice case over 30 years ago involved a medication error.  A drug was prescribed for my client, and one of the risks of the drug was damage to the optic nerve.  The health care providers failure to do a baseline eye exam and failed to monitor our client for changes in her vision.  These failures caused permanent blindness in both eyes.  We won this case at trial but it was later reversed on appeal because of an error in the jury instructions.  The case was settled shortly before a second trial.