Question

Describe negligence-related risks when providing laboratory, nutritional, pharmacy, physical therapy, podiatry, radiology, respiratory, chiropractic, dentistry, and podiatric services.

Answer 1

1.Laboratory and Pharmacy:

• Rushing results -- leading to inaccuracies, mistakes, and mix-ups (organizational errors)
• Sloppy sample taking, not following procedures or contamination of samples (more examples of organizational errors)
• Using wrong or faulty equipment
• Interpreting errors in the results (analytical error) physicians are the final interpreters of the results
• Results are ambiguous or not clearly defined
• The error made in the recording of the results
• Losing results or failing to report results to doctor or patient
• Not getting results to the doctor or patient in an appropriate amount of time

2.Physical therapy:

Here are two types of damages: economic damages and non-economical damages.  Economical damages are more of the clear cut expenses, like a medical expense after a fracture or a burn, the loss of income (if the patient was out of work) due to an injury, or funeral expenses (if the resulting injury was death). Non-economic damages are the intangible monetary damages that patients will put a monetary amount on. These include mental anguish, pain, and suffering, or loss of consortium (loss of happiness of life).

For example, a woman who was an avid skier came to physical therapy for treatment after a fall. The PT's treatment was deemed too aggressive, and the woman ended up re-injuring her leg, which in fact was the same leg she was originally seeking treatment for. This re-injury ended the woman's skiing career and she sought damages for loss of happiness of life. As you see, skiing was her passion, and she was no longer able to participate in this activity after her treatment.

3.Podiastry:

One example was when a podiatrist convinced his patient to have an operation to "cure" flat feet. These operations are often unnecessary, and they are always risky. Another example, knowledgeable malpractice lawyers have seen many times over is where the podiatrist performed surgery to remove bunions, known as a "bunionectomy". This is not the simple and risk-free operation that many podiatrists lead their patients to believe. After several operations to repair problems caused by the bunionectomy, several clients lost their jobs and have gone through years of disability for operations that they didn't even need.

4.Radiology:

The perceptual errors or the radiologic are the ones in which a radiologic abnormality is not seen by the radiologist on initial interpretation. Out of the two types, perceptual errors resulting in false-negative errors are the most frequent accounting for 80%, and the majority of which includes failure to diagnose breast cancer on mammography, lung nodules on chest x-ray, and fractures on skeletal radiographs. Such errors of perception are influenced by multiple factors like lack of knowledge, faulty reasoning, under reading, inadequate exposure, limitation inherent to the diagnostic test, non-communication with the referring clinician, no adequate clinical information available, etc

5.Respiratory:

A delay in diagnosis or delay in treatment of any type of respiratory condition could cause you significant injury including further lung damage, heart failure, brain damage, or death. You may have been suffering from symptoms and your GP has failed to carry out any investigations or refer you to a specialist. You may have been referred to the hospital and the treating doctors have failed to investigate your symptoms or misinterpreted a scan or x-ray or failed to act on the results of a report on a scan.

6.Chiropractic

Manipulation That Causes Injury: Spinal adjustments are serious and risky procedures and they require expert care and well-trained professionals. Adjustment results can be catastrophic if chiropractors fail to properly diagnose a patient, do not take a complete medical history, or incorrectly execute the procedure.

7.Dentistry:

Dental professionals can find themselves under lawsuits for negligence if they fail to provide any necessary information to patients before dental treatment. The practitioner's treatment may be conducted with realistic, but not excellent, care. In such cases, the court will collect and consider all circumstances to determine whether the practitioner has been negligent. Negligence is considered very different from errors or mistakes in judgment

8.Podiatric :

• Failure to timely diagnose and treat an infection, including a bone infection called osteomyelitis
• Failure to diagnose and treat nerve injuries, including Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) also known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)
• Failure to adequately perform surgery
• Malpractice in treatment of bone spurs
• Malpractice in treatment of heel pain
• Negligence in the treatment of diabetics with foot or skin problems
• Failure to provide adequate follow-up care
• Failure to timely refer the patient
• Providing medical treatment that was not needed