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Do I Have a Valid Virginia Medical Malpractice Case?
When your doctor makes a mistake, the outcome can be tragic for you and your family. You have hospital bills piling up and you're out of work, but you've heard that hospitals have deep pockets and ‘round-the-clock lawyers.
Before you get into a long legal battle, you want to make sure it will be worth it to pursue your medical malpractice case. And it's a good idea, because not all negligent physicians are guilty of malpractice.
Determining if your physician was at fault
In order for your Virginia doctor to be liable for medical malpractice, three things must have occurred:
- A medical professional made a mistake while treating you.
- You sustained serious harm or injury.
- Your injury was a direct result of that mistake.
Many people think that when a doctor makes a mistake, he can easily be sued for negligence. However, if the mistake was corrected or did not cause injury, a medical malpractice case is less likely to succeed. Your doctor has a duty to treat you according to acceptable methods pertaining to your age, health, and condition. This is known as the standard of care, and it is only when the doctor breaches the standard of care that he can be negligent.
New Law Gives Virginia Medical Malpractice Victims Access to Hospital Records
Are you a victim of a surgical error in DC? New legislation gives you the right to access the hospital's investigation report of your injury.
After a medical error has occurred in an operating room, a hospital must conduct an investigation to see how the error took place and take steps to prevent it from happening again. However, until this bill was passed, the hospital did not have to disclose the contents of the incident report to the patient.
House Bill 2373, which passed earlier this year, states that hospitals must release "incident reports prepared by first-hand witnesses regarding occurrences involving actual or potential injury or death of a patient" to the victim and his attorney. These documents, once considered "privileged communications," may be used as evidence in addition to a patient's medical records in a medical malpractice case.
While many patients understand that something went wrong during their surgery, they only get the information that the doctor is willing to give. Under House Bill 2373, medical professionals must account for any errors in plain language, even if the information plainly shows negligence on the part of the hospital or surgical team.
Fairfax Police Say Fleeing Driver Caused Crash On I-395
Police are still investigating the cause of car chase that ended in a Fairfax county crash on October 18.
The pursuit began when a Fairfax County police officer attempted to flag down a driver on I-95 North at around 4 a.m. When the driver sped from the scene, the officer gave chase near the Fairfax County Parkway.
Several additional cruisers joined in the chase before they abruptly came to a halt on I-395 near the Edsall Road exit. The civilian's car had crashed into a guardrail and become pinned against its side by one of the pursuing police vehicles.
According to police, both the driver and the officer suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
The accident caused many morning delays for commuters on I-395 North, as the right lane, right shoulder and one exit were blocked until the crash site could be cleared.
Investigations into the cause of the chase are ongoing.
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How You Can Tell Which Attorney is Right for Your VA Brain Injury Case?
It's hard not to feel helpless when someone you love has suffered a severe brain injury. The costs of care are increasing, nobody seems to care that the accident wasn't your loved one's fault, and now, he will probably require your loving care for the rest of his life. So who can possibly get you the help you need to support your family after this tragedy?
The attorneys at Shevlin Smith want you to know that you are not alone. We have spent a lifetime getting compensation for brain injury victims, and have won considerable settlements for victims of:
- Birth injuries. Our client, a young mother, came to us after suffering a brain injury during an elective c-section. She suffered respiratory distress as a result of anesthesia, which caused her to stop breathing and her heart to stop beating. She was resuscitated, but suffered an anoxic brain injury due to the delay in noticing her respiratory distress. We were able to recover $1,450,000 for our client (at the time of the settlement, Virginia had a statutory cap of $1.5 million).
Two School Bus Accidents On Same Day In DC, One Child Injured
At least one child was injured as two Virginia school bus accidents took place within an hour of each other.
The first accident was reported around 7:40 Wednesday morning on Lee Highway and Chantilly Road in Fairfax County. The bus was carrying children to school, one of whom sustained injuries. He was taken to a local hospital for observation, but was not in serious condition, according to Fairfax County sources.
At approximately 8:20 a.m., a second accident occurred when a Chrysler sedan rear-ended a school bus on Route 28 at Old Mill Road after New Braddock Road.
The bus was empty of passengers when the southbound-traveling sedan struck it, but the sedan's occupants and the bus driver were treated for minor injuries.
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FDA Says Majority of Medication Errors Due to Wrong Dosage
The US Food and Drug Administration says that while many factors affect a patient's chances of medication mistakes, they are most likely to be the victim of a dosage error.A few examples prove how easy it is for a physician to administer the wrong dosage in Virginia:
- A doctor ordered 260 milligrams of Taxol for a cancer patient, but the patient received the wrong medication at the pharmacy. The pharmacist mistakenly prepared 260 milligrams of Taxotere, a different chemotherapy drug with a much higher concentration. When the patient died of an overdose, the error went unreported, as doctors assumed the patient had succumbed to the cancer.
- An elderly patient was told to take a 10-milligram daily dose of methotrexate for rheumatoid arthritis. However, the patient should only have been prescribed 10-milligrams weekly, and the 7 times higher dose proved fatal.
- A patient was killed when he was injected with 200 units of insulin, which had been abbreviated as "20 U" (the "U" was mistaken for another zero).
FDA Cracks Down on LASIK Surgeons’ False Promises
Truth in advertising is not just for cereal and soda anymore. The FDA recently responded to potentially misleading information in LASIK surgery pamphlets and TV advertising. The ultimatum, published in the FDA's Letter to Eye Care Professionals, puts a deadline on their May 2009 warning about dangerous surgical misinformation.Under the terms given by the FDA, eye doctors have 90 days to rewrite their LASIK promotional materials. If they are found to contain any false claims after that period, the surgeon will face regulatory action.Specifically, LASIK advertising should no longer contain:
- Any claims not supported by studies or medical evidence
- Omissions or misleading phrasing
- Any language that suggests the procedure is "completely safe"
Surgeons responded positively to the change, saying that a potential patient should not base a surgical decision on advertising claims. Members of the medical community also advise those considering LASIK not to choose a doctor just because he offers discounts or coupons.As trusted Fairfax medical malpractice lawyers, we know that surgeons have a responsibility not only to perform all procedures to the best of their ability, but also to inform their patients of the risks involved. If your surgeon put his profits ahead of your safety, he could be liable for Virginia medical malpractice.Call Shevlin Smith today at 703-591-0067 for a free consultation on your surgical error case.
Elderly Woman In Hospital After Car Crashes Into DC Home
Police are on the lookout for a driver who injured an elderly woman when he crashed his car into a DC home.
On the morning of October 5, a vehicle with Maryland license plates struck a residence on the 2600 block of 24th St. NE near Douglas St. NE. One of the occupants of the house placed a 911 call reporting a hit-and-run accident.
By the time the authorities arrived, the driver had fled the scene and left his vehicle behind.
D.C. Fire & EMS Spokesman Pete Piringer stated that three people were home when the crash took place. Their injuries were non-life-threatening, but one of the victims, an elderly female, received hospital treatment.
Police suspect that the car may be stolen, and are asking anyone with helpful information to come forward.
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Board Pushes For Changes To DC Bicycle Laws
New road rules could stop the rising number of bicycle accidents in DC.
According to the District's Police Complaints Board, D.C. police officers will often cite a bicyclist after an accident with a car, regardless if the cyclist was at fault or not.
For example, cyclists have been ticketed for "riding abreast" after a collision with a car door-a law that only applies to cyclists riding side-by-side with other bikers. These citations are doubly harmful to bikers: they are forced to pay fines when they have not violated any laws, and the citation may be used against them in court if they seek damages from the motorist.
The Board has recommended a number of improvements to make the roads safer for cyclists, including ticketing drivers who park in bike lanes and that police officers be regularly tested on D.C. bicycle laws.
There may also be changes to the filing of accident reports after a collision with a cyclist. Often, the cyclist will require hospital treatment and not be able to give a statement before the police report is filed. Not only will officers be required to wait before filing the report, but forms may be revised to include more details of the accident should the case go to court.
Why don’t Virginia doctors realize they have the wrong patient in surgery?
It's such a simple mistake, but it has overwhelming consequences: a patient expecting eye surgery awoke to discover she had undergone heart surgery instead.However, there is hope: physicians have been documenting the causes of wrong-patient surgeries, hoping to correct any mistakes before the surgery takes place. By identifying where the mistakes were made in each case, a new study could help doctors correct many wrong patient surgeries in Virginia before they occur.The study revealed that a Colorado hospital experienced 25 wrong-patient surgeries in a six-year period. Of the five patients that were seriously harmed by a wrong-patient procedure:
- Mislabeled biopsy samples were the cause of three different prostate removal surgeries on the wrong patients.
- One wrong patient underwent eye surgery because another patient with the same last name was in the office at the same time.
- Doctors performed ear surgery in a child scheduled for an adenoidectomy simply because the wrong patient was wheeled into the operating room.
703-591-0067
10513 Judicial Drive, Suite 200, Fairfax, VA 22030
703-591-0067
From our office in Fairfax, Shevlin Smith, P.C. serves clients throughout Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., including Alexandria, Annandale, Arlington, Ashburn, Burke, Centreville, Dale City, Fair Oaks, Leesburg, Manassas, McLean, Oakton, Reston, Springfield, and Woodbridge, as well as Fairfax County, Arlington County, Fauquier County, Loudoun County, and Prince William County.
Results listed are not a guarantee or indication of future case results.
