Litigation

Supportive periodontal care is an essential component of maintaining the outcome of periodontal treatment. It is essential to ensure cost benefit to both patients and the health services where millions are spent on treating patients with periodontal disease. The dentist must be able to recognise the crucial and important role they play in providing supportive care and therapy to periodontally compromised patients, either independently or as part of a wider dental team, over and above the various challenges they may experience in the provision of such care in general dental practice...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Orbital fractures frequently require operative management by a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. Due to the proximity to the globe and complexity of the reconstruction, orbital fractures, and related procedures have the potential to be a source of medical litigation. The aim of the present study was to review orbital fracture malpractice litigation, including case outcomes and compensatory damages. METHODS: The Westlaw and Lexis Nexis databases were queried for jury verdicts and settlements related to orbital fracture malpractice lawsuits...

IMPORTANCE: Direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) are safe and highly effective for curing hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, but their high cost led certain state Medicaid programs to impose coverage restrictions. Since 2015, many of these restrictions have been lifted voluntarily in response to advocacy or because of litigation. OBJECTIVE: To estimate how the prescribing of DAAs to Medicaid patients changed after states eased access restrictions. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This modified difference-in-differences analysis of 39 state Medicaid programs included Medicaid beneficiaries who were prescribed a DAA from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2019...

BACKGROUND: Neurosurgeons face particularly high rates of litigation compared to physicians in other fields. Malpractice claims are commonly seen after mismanagement of life-threatening medical emergencies, such as epidural haematomas. Due to the lack of legal analysis pertaining to this condition, the aim of this study is to identify risk factors associated with litigation in cases relating to the diagnosis and treatment of epidural haematomas. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Westlaw Edge, an online database, was used to analyze malpractice cases related to epidural haematomas between 1986 and 2022...

BACKGROUND:  It is challenging for newly qualified professional nurses (NQPNs) to care for children with congenital heart abnormalities following cardiac surgery in cardiothoracic critical care units. This population of nurses is allocated to critically ill children in the cardiothoracic intensive care unit (CTICU) even though they lack sufficient knowledge, experience and skills to care for these patients. OBJECTIVES:  This study explored, described and made recommendations to support NQPNs who provide postoperative care to children in a CTICU...

As the basis of radiation safety practice and regulations worldwide, the linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis exerts enormous influence throughout society. This includes our judicial system, where frivolous lawsuits are filed alleging radiation-induced health effects caused by negligent companies who subject unwitting victims to enormous financial and physical harm. Typically, despite the lack of any supporting scientific basis, these cases result in enormous costs to organizations, insurance companies, and consumers...

BACKGROUND: Unsafe patient events not only entail a clinical impact but also lead to economic burden in terms of prolonged hospitalization or unintended harm and delay in care delivery. Monitoring and time-bound investigation of patient safety events (PSEs) is of paramount importance in a healthcare set-up. OBJECTIVES: To explore the safety incident reporting behaviour and the barriers in a hospital set-up. METHODS: The study had two sections: (a) Retrospective assessment of all safety incidents in the past 1 year, and (b) Understanding the barriers of safety reporting by interviewing the major stakeholders in patient safety reporting framework...

BACKGROUND: This study aims to pioneer in evaluating women's representation in plastic surgery innovations, focusing on mammary prosthesis devices' inventorship. Despite growing gender parity in the field, women's involvement in innovation remains underexplored. This is especially crucial, as the predominant recipients of these innovative technologies are women, urging a necessity for broader female engagement in pioneering surgical advancements. METHOD: Patents under the "A61F2/12: Mammary prostheses and implants" classification between the dates January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2020, were identified using Google Patents Advanced...

INTRODUCTION: Body contouring procedures are commonly performed in the United States for patients seeking to sculpt specific areas of their bodies. The aim of this study was to provide an updated analysis of the factors that influence medical malpractice litigation surrounding body contouring surgery. METHODS: The following terms were used to search the Westlaw Campus Legal research Database for cases with earliest documentation after January 2013: ("contouring" OR "abdominoplasty" OR "liposuction" OR "tummy tuck" OR "body lift" OR "thigh lift" OR "arm lift" OR "brachioplasty" OR "thighplasty" OR "lipectomy" OR "panniculectomy") AND "surgery" AND "medical malpractice...

Introduction Standard of care management for open fractures historically mandates emergent systemic antibiotic administration, followed by urgent irrigation and debridement in the operating room, regardless of injury severity. However, significant controversy exists regarding the specific implementation and importance of these commonly accepted guidelines. We aimed to define differences in the management of grade 1 open distal radius fractures. Methods An anonymous online survey was distributed to attending surgeon members of either the Orthopaedic Trauma Association (OTA) between January 2019 and April 2019 or the New York Society for Surgery of the Hand (NYSSH) in January 2019...

In November 1881, the eminent physiologist and physician David Ferrier was prosecuted under the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876. The prosecution was raised by the Victoria Street Society, formerly known as the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection, through its activist founder, Frances Power Cobbe. This article examines the legislative context prior to Ferrier's trial, the personalities involved in the prosecution, and its course and outcome. The resultant impact, both personal, on Cobbe and Ferrier, and professional, on experimental neurophysiology, is discussed, in particular the foundation of the Association for the Advancement of Medicine by Research (AAMR) and the provision of legal support for medical practitioners subject to litigation...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Healthcare is a highly regulated industry whose practitioners are responsible for adhering to laws, regulations, policies, and standards of care. When poor outcomes occur, a malpractice case can arise, thus beginning the litigation process. Because nurses are leaders in the delivery of care, they may become involved in legal claims. The purpose of this article is to provide information, as a foundation for nurses who are unfamiliar with navigating the litigation process in a legal claim, and to help nurses build confidence in the process...

BACKGROUND: Parents are anxious and apprehensive about the health of their children. A standardised, reproducible and meticulous parental counselling is helpful to both the parents and the treating doctors, as well as markedly reduces instances of scrimmage and medico-legal litigations. The aim of this study is to assess the psychosocial and medico-legal outcomes of parental counselling-in-continuum (PCiC) in paediatric surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was conducted at two government-run Tertiary Healthcare Centres in North India...

The study of planning and execution failures resulting in disastrous outcomes for public events often offers much value when preparing for similar future events. While not recent, the lessons learned from the Indiana State Fair stage collapse of 2011 remain especially pertinent, due to thorough technical and managerial forensic investigations and their rigorous examination during subsequent litigation about the fatal event. Continued concern about life safety and inconsistent building code enforcement and design guidance for publicly occupied temporary structures, eg, outdoor stages, recently drew recommended changes by the International Code Council for the 2024 edition of the International Building Code...

Institutional investors, who control as much as $154 trillion globally, may play an important role in shaping the energy transition as major stakeholders in fossil fuel producing, distributing and consuming companies. Research on investors and fossil fuels has focused largely on the divestment movement or on shareholder engagement. However, given their limited success to date, additional strategies to influence the fossil fuel sector are merited. This review paper expands the scope of attention to investors, asking: what strategies for influencing the fossil fuel industry are available to institutional investors and what are the implications of these for achieving an inclusive fossil fuel phase-out? Through a systematic review of 153 papers, we identify seven strategies for influencing the fossil fuel phase-out: divestment, shareholder engagement, hiring practices, engaging the financial sector, engaging indirect financial actors, litigation, and green investment...

At the dawn of "metaclinical medicine" era, shared decision-making represents the overcoming of modern medicine guidelines and classical medicine experience. The patient's life plan, the doctor's health plan, the scientist's evidence-based plan, the administrator's plan and the beliefs of the society for healthcare options should be integrated into the shared decision-making process to avoid patient's unrealistic expectations, doctor's self-referential and defensive medicine, the science without compassion of the scientist, the administered medicine of the politician, the herd mentality of artificial intelligence...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate factors which influence UK general dental practitioners (GDPs) when restoring posterior root filled teeth. METHOD: An electronic survey was designed to explore current strategies of treatment of posterior root filled teeth by UK-based GDPs working in primary care. Three vignette cases included in the questionnaire explored a variety of tooth, patient, and financial factors. The survey was distributed by email and social media platforms between December 2018 and February 2019...

OBJECTIVE: The pathway from experiencing sexual assault to successful prosecution of sexual assault cases is plagued by complicated and myriad factors, resulting in suboptimal outcomes for both survivors and judicial systems. In particular, disturbance of posttraumatic memory recall under stressful circumstances can negatively impact the veracity of survivor testimony. METHOD: This brief report integrates empirical findings from studies of trauma memory disturbance, and more specifically the impacts of glucocorticoid activation in sexual assault memory, contextualizing through the lens of implications for sexual assault litigation...