By Emily Mapp Brannon, VA/NC Med Mal Attorney

What Happened:

A Florida compounding pharmacy just announced that it would recall its entire line of sterile products after an inspection by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration raised concerns about the safety of its products.

The latest recall is one in a string of moves by compounding pharmacies to recall products after fears were raised about the sterilization processes at a wide array of facilities. The latest recall includes all the injectables produced under the Balanced Solutions Compounding Pharmacy name, a total of 53 separate products.

The company has said its products were sent to doctor’s offices across the country and that the company will now be recalling all not expired items due to concerns that they may not be sterile. The FDA has announced that during an inspection of the Balanced Solutions plant investigators witnessed poor practices and conditions which could have exposed medications to contamination.

The FDA said the inspection raised concerns about a lack of sterility assurance. A later test of one of Balanced Solutions’ products confirmed the presence of bacteria. Patients who have received drug injections produced by Balanced Solutions are being asked to contact their healthcare providers.

The Virginia Injury Attorney’s Perspective:

The latest problems with Balanced Solutions comes soon after recalls by three other compounding pharmacies across the country. The other compounding pharmacies issued the recalls after FDA inspections raised doubts about sterilization practices. The FDA has turned up the heat on compounding pharmacies across the country in the wake of the deadly fungal meningitis outbreak caused by unsanitary conditions at the New England Compounding Center. That episode left more than 50 people dead and more than 700 seriously injured.

As experienced Virginia dangerous drug attorneys, my colleagues and I have helped clients through many cases like this one. Sadly, thousands of people experience the pain of taking a medication prescribed by their doctor only to have it cause serious health problems later on. This happens far too often and the side effects can last a lifetime.

Potentially Helpful Info: 

Attorneys with our Virginia personal injury law firm have helped many victims of dangerous and defective drugs recover damages from companies whose negligence or disregard for consumer safety led to injuries.

If you or a family member has been injured by a defective or dangerous drug, you can begin to learn about your legal rights and options by reading this article. The report, drafted by our experienced Virginia injury attorneys, provides examples of various kinds of dangerous drug lawsuits, common legal theories used in such cases and an explanation of how dangerous drug cases are investigated.

Have Questions? Check Out Our FAQs

If you’ve been injured due to a dangerous or defective drug, you likely have a lot of questions about how to move forward. Take a look at our firm’s library containing attorneys’ answers to frequently asked questions regarding defective or dangerous drugs.

Here’s a video discussing the settlement process in medical malpractice cases:

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About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

By Kevin Duffan, VA/NC Medical Malpractice Attorney

What Happened:

A major medical malpractice case in New York recently culminated with a $130 million jury award. The family from Long Island sued after they claimed their daughter’s delivery at a Long Island hospital resulted in her later developing cerebral palsy.

The jury that deliberated on the case found that the hospital, St. Charles Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, departed from accepted obstetrical practice in several important ways, ways that the jury found ultimately caused harm to the baby. These alterations from standard operating procedures resulted in a loss of oxygen to the young girl, Shannon Reilly.

Attorneys for the family now say that Shannon is unable to walk, speak, write or swallow without assistance from others. The girl required round-the-clock care for her serious injuries. The jury saw the severity of her injuries as justification for the massive award, one of the largest medical malpractice verdicts in New York history.

Despite the good news for the family, it was a very long road to this point. The case actually heated up in 2009 when the family’s attorney convinced them to reject an $8 million settlement offer from the hospital that was attempting to avoid going to trial. The family agreed and ended up losing the case. The loss was seen as so bad that the hospital’s attorneys mocked the failure in the press, laughing at them for turning down $8 million and then getting shut out of court.

Though it was difficult, the family and their attorney persevered and in 2011 the New York Appellate Court reversed the lower court decision, ordering a new trial. The second case ended in a hung jury and required a third trial, which began last month. Despite the years of struggling the fight appears to have been worth it.

The Virginia Injury Attorney’s Perspective:

Most children who have cerebral palsy have had it since birth, often due to a lack of oxygen to the brain. Sometimes this lack of oxygen is because of medical malpractice and delivery mistakes during labor or childbirth. In cases where medical malpractice has been linked to a child’s development of cerebral palsy, common causes include: the failure to properly detect or treat infections in the mother during pregnancy, the failure to properly monitor fetal heart rate before and during labor, the failure to plan for a cesarean section when a baby is too large to safely pass through the birth canal and negligence in using instruments like forceps in a delivery.

If you or a loved one has been the victim of a medical error or complication, you should consult with an experienced Virginia (VA) medical malpractice lawyer who has successfully handled similar med mal cases in the past. Our firm enjoys a reputation of experience and success while representing victims in medical malpractice cases against doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers. We approach each case individually to provide the resources, knowledge and experience to achieve success on behalf of our clients.

Potentially Helpful Info:

If you or a member of your family has been harmed by a Virginia (VA) doctor’s misdiagnosis, mistake or negligence, you can begin to learn about your legal rights and options for seeking compensation by downloading this free report.

Have Questions? Check Out Our Firm’s FAQs.

If you or a loved one has been injured at the hands of a medical professional, chances are you are confused about your options and may not know where to turn for help. To learn more about medical malpractice cases, check out this online library of Virginia (VA) attorneys’ answers to frequently asked questions regarding medical malpractice lawsuits.

Here’s a post discussing the importance of medical records in malpractice lawsuits:

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About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

By Richard Shapiro, VA/NC Medical Malpractice Attorney

A Nevada medical malpractice case against UnitedHealth and a shoddy medical clinic that infected patients with Hepatitis C, culminated in a massive $500 million punitive damage award. To learn more, read the full story here…

“Med Mal Case Against UnitedHealth Group Ends With Half A Billion Punitive Damage Award”

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About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

By Mark Favaloro,Virginia Medical Malpractice Injury Lawyer

The CDC has released new statistics that show a sharp increase in children being diagnosed with A.D.H.D. That diagnosis is typically treated with strong drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall. Many in the medical community are concerned that these medications are being overused. To learn more, read here. . .

New CDC Data Reveals One in Five High-School Age Boys Diagnosed with A.D.H.D.

About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

By Randy Appleton, VA/NC Medical Malpractice Attorney

What Happened:

A recently published study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that doctors and hospitals stand to benefit when surgeries go awry. The results showed that medical providers stand to make substantially more money in cases where surgical complications have arisen than in those cases that go as planned. The authors of the piece, all doctors from Harvard Medical School, found that surgical complications increase a typical procedure’s average contribution margin by 330 percent for privately insured individuals and 190 percent for Medicare patients.

The data was collected by combing through records for more than 35,000 surgeries that were conducted at a major hospital in the Dallas area. The results of the surgeries were then linked to hospital bills and the results surprised even the study’s authors. A typical surgery with a privately insured patient yields a profit of slightly less than $17,000. If a surgical complication were to occur, the profit margin would jump to $56,000. For Medicare patients, profits in routine surgeries average $1,900 and jump to $3,300 in the event of a complication.

The authors of the study first got the idea to explore the issue after puzzling over why some hospitals were so reluctant to implement even small changes that had been shown to lead to large reductions in medical errors. The authors wondered whether money might play a role in the decision-making process and were dismayed to find such a powerful connection between profits and patient harm.

The study concluded that the insurance payment system in the country is broken; that paying doctors for the number of procedures performed without taking into account the success rate of the operation is a mistake. The authors suggest that to begin incentivizing medical providers to lower complication rates, insurers should tie their payments to surgical success rates. The goal, according to the study’s authors, is to more effectively tie payment to medical value, ensuring that doctors and hospitals are not rewarded for harming a patient’s health.

The Virginia Injury Attorney’s Perspective: 

Though most surgeons are highly skilled and work hard to do a good job each and every time, mistakes happen that can leave patients seriously injured or even dead. According to statistics from the Institute of Medicine, 98,000 patients die each year due to medical mistakes and costly surgical complications, a far higher figure than should be acceptable.

If you or a loved one has been the victim of a surgical error or complication, you should consult with an experienced Virginia (VA) medical malpractice lawyer for this type of medical malpractice lawsuit. Our firm enjoys a reputation of experience and success while representing victims in medical malpractice cases against doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers. We approach each case individually to provide the resources, knowledge and experience to achieve success on behalf of our clients. 

Potentially Helpful Info:

If you or a member of your family has been harmed by a Virginia (VA) doctor’s misdiagnosis, mistake or negligence, you can begin to learn about your legal rights and options for seeking compensation by downloading this free report.

Have Questions? Check Out Our Firm’s FAQs.

If you or a loved one has been injured at the hands of a medical professional, chances are you are confused about your options and may not know where to turn for help. To learn more about medical malpractice cases, check out this online library of Virginia (VA) attorneys’ answers to frequently asked questions regarding medical malpractice lawsuits.

Here’s a video explaining some of the common medical errors that can occur during surgery:

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About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

By Jim Lewis, Medical Negligence Attorney

Our firm published an article discussing the misguided and irrational arguments calling for capping jury awards at $250,000. Jury awards are not the problem. They do not cause health care costs to increase. Find out why in this article…

The Answer to Rising Health Care Costs is Not Found in the Court Room

About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

What happened:

Singer LeAnn Rimes has filed a malpractice lawsuit against her dentist, alleging he damaged her teeth instead of treating her Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) disorder.  The singer said in her lawsuit that she was a patient of the dentist for three years. Some of the procedures he performed on her included upper front veneers and crowns that the dentist promised would address her TMJ-related pain as well as improve her appearance.

But instead of addressing the problem, Rimes was left with tremendous pain and bleeding. She has had to undergo nine root canal procedures, bone grafting, a temporary bridge and physical therapy. Rimes described the pain she suffers from as “I feel like I got hit in my right side of my face with a baseball bat.”

The lawsuit says that Rimes has been left with a “permanent cosmetic deficiency” that has left her unable to perform. The singer is seeking unspecified damages for physical, emotional and psychiatric injuries, as well as compensation for loss of past and future earnings.

The Virginia Lawyer’s Perspective:

When dental procedures are performed incorrectly or negligently, resulting in nerve damage or chronic pain, patients should consult with a medical malpractice attorney. As this case highlights, malpractice by dentists can have both long-term physical, emotional and financial effects on victims.

Our Virginia personal injury law firm has successfully represented many clients in malpractice lawsuits, including one client who was awarded $1.25 million for a surgical error that ultimately cost the client both her legs.

The area of the jaw that is affected by TMJ disorder.

Potentially Helpful Info:

Our Virginia medical malpractice attorneys have compiled a wealth of useful information regarding what constitutes a medical malpractice claim, limits on the amount of time to file a claim, and how to find the right medmal lawyer to handle your case.

Have Questions? Check out Our Firm’s FAQs:

You can learn more by reading our online library of Virginia  medical malpractice lawyers’ answers to frequently asked questions. 

About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

By Jim Lewis, Virginia (VA) Medical Malpractice Lawyer

We put a lot of trust into any medical professional when we walk into their office. Over 7,000 patients have been put at risk of contracting HIV and hepatitis after an Oklahoma dentist allegedlybreached their trust and violated protocol. To read the full story, follow the link to “Alleged Dentist Puts 7,000 Patients at Risk of HIV, Hepatitis”.

About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

By Jim Lewis, Virginia Medical Malpractice Injury Attorney

Our firm published an article on the disturbing sales techniques used by sales representatives for the da Vinci surgical procedure robot. Many doctors were pressured to use the da Vinci robot, even when many had very little training with the device. To learn more, check out the article here…

Aggressive Da Vinci Robot Sales Reps May Have Contributed to Patient Injuries

About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.

By Jim Lewis, North Carolina (NC) Medical Malpractice Lawyer

A family from Taylorsville, North Carolina (NC) took the state to the Supreme Court when state officials placed a lien for $933,333.33 on the family’s $2.8 million medical malpractice settlement. To find out the Supreme Court’s ruling follow the link to “Supreme Court Rules Against N.C. Claim of Malpractice Settlement”.

About the Editors: The VA-NC medical malpractice attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis, Appleton & Favaloro include medical and surgical malpractice lawyers licensed in both Virginia and Carolina. Our attorneys have experience handling medical malpractice cases involving hospital and doctors’ mistakes, as well as nursing home abuse and neglect. Check out our case results to see our track record of success in medical malpractice lawsuits, and also be sure to read our free medical malpractice reports Top 10 Tips From a Medical Malpractice Insider and Top 5 Surgical Errors. Attorneys with our firm have been listed among the Best Lawyers in America since 2008. Attorneys with our personal injury law firm have also been named Virginia Super Lawyers since 2010, an honor fewer than 5 percent of practicing attorneys receive.