medical malpractice lawyers in florida
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Surgical Errors

Nurse looking off in distance

There is nothing simple about having a surgical procedure done. Both patients and medical professionals take extreme precaution to ensure a smooth pre-operation, operation, and post-operation. Yet, even with extensive training and important routines to avoid them, doctors, nurses, or surgeons regularly make mistakes. If any medical professionals have fallen below the accepted and expected standards of care and cause their patient to sustain injuries that have a negative impact, you may be entitled to compensation. Common types of surgical errors can be having the wrong operation performed, a foreign object being left inside the body after an operation, or the wrong...

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Appeals court upholds count against hospital

Lady Justice holding scale

Appeals court upholds count against hospital for failing to ensure non-employee doctor used its surgical robot safely, causing patient’s death. Many hospitals hire doctors as “independent contractors” rather than ordinary employees, in the hope, it will mean that if the doctor commits malpractice, the hospital cannot be held responsible for it.  However, many doctors in Florida have little or no medical malpractice insurance, while hospitals have plenty of insurance. Therefore, it is often in a medical malpractice plaintiff’s best interest if there is a way to show that the hospital should be held responsible for the malpractice of a doctor working...

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Florida Supreme Court upholds statutory “foreign body presumption of malpractice,” even when additional evidence of negligence exists.  

Medical Malpractice Implements

Normally, a malpractice plaintiff must prove that malpractice occurred, causing their injuries.  But Florida has a law which provides that following a surgery if a foreign object is found left in the surgical site (sponges, scalpels, needles, catheters, etc.), that fact alone establishes for the patient that medical malpractice occurred.   The burden then shifts to the doctor or hospital defendant to specifically prove they were not negligent.    In this case, a patient was still having abdominal pain four months after surgery, and a CT scan found a 4.25-inch piece of drainage tube left inside his abdomen, requiring a second surgery...

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Appeals court upholds NICA weight distinction

Appeals court holds NICA distinction between minimum weights for single births and multiple gestations does not violate federal equal protection laws.     The NICA program, which provides compensation for certain severe injuries to babies that occur during labor and delivery, will not provide benefits for an infant whose birth weight is under 2500 grams (about 5.5 pounds).   However, for multiple gestation pregnancies (twins, triplets, etc.), babies can get NICA benefits as long as their birth weight is at least 2000 grams (about 4.4 pounds).   In this case, a baby suffered severe injuries at birth but was denied benefits because it was...

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Florida Supreme Court holds Florida patients are entitled to access to hospital adverse incident reports, in spite of federal statute.   

Scales of justice for injury lawyer

Florida Supreme Court holds Florida patients are entitled to access to hospital adverse incident reports, in spite of federal statute.    For many decades, there were laws on the books in Florida which specifically prevented patients from having access to information about adverse medical incidents and patient injuries within hospitals, including even information about mistakes made in the patient’s own medical care.   In 2004, Florida voters approved an amendment to the Florida Constitution changing the law and allowing wide access to hospital adverse incident records.  This change to the Florida Constitution is often referred to as the “Patient’s Right to Know”...

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