We Don't Even Know Where to Begin
1) More than a dozen more ear-stapling businesses have been told to shut down by the Mississippi Medical Licensure Board because they aren’t licensed. The small, stainless steel staples are supposed to apply pressure to points that control appetite and cravings for nicotine. Do people sue if they keep eating? Read [Clarion Ledger]
2) This happened in Canada, but we couldn’t let it go. A hospital had to cancel 17 elective surgeries after six doctors were suspended because they were not completing patients’ charts. Oh, yeah, the slackin’ docs had 28 days to take care of this huge liability risk. Read
3) A New Jersey woman with a history of beating her son laid a real swift kick to his neck in 2003. The boy died from internal bleeding and heart failure several hours after being admitted to a hospital. Now, three medical experts say it was Pascack Valley Hospital’s shoddy care--not mom's footwork--that caused the boy’s death. So mom was found guilty of assault instead of murder. Even if the facts are what they are, the whole thing just sickens us. Read [Bergen Record]
Read more news that MakesUsSick here and here. And contact us if you have some news that MakesYouSick.
We’ve gotten great support since the beginning from Philip Howard and the crew at Common Good who are helping bring special health courts to states across the nation. Howard wrote a powerful piece about hospitals’ fear of lawsuits helping allow a nurse, Charles Cullen, to kill at least 29 patients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 
Doug Wojcieszak first asked when he joined the TMMS squad: "What if you could lower lawsuits and litigation costs without any politics?" 
Dr. Eric Novack started the first of his many guest columns by flatly stating: “Solving the medical liability crisis will require medicine embracing the legal system. That sounds like complete heresy coming from an actively practicing surgeon!” 
We got the real political deal of trying to clean up the medical liability mess from U.S. Congressman Mac Thornberry. He watched the wind blowing the special health court sails disappear like magic as a fellow congressman’s support for the solution vanished: “the Association of Trial Lawyers caught wind of his interest in the bill and they quickly changed his mind by threatening to cut off all campaign contributions.” 
Muriel in Seattle, an 87-year old grandmother, detailed the nonsense of having to sign liability wavier after wavier while facing a frightening hospital stay over Thanksgiving in 2005: "They stick it right in front of you." 
1) While surgery on the wrong patient or wrong body part often makes headlines, a new study that looked at 20 years of data from a malpractice insurance provider found that cases of "wrong-site surgery" are rare. 
Hating the hand that feeds you? Not exactly. As you know, we're not docs. So we found this week’s 
Dr. Charles extols his fellow dos and regular Joes alike to support the Senate plan to pass a cap on non-economic damages in med-mal cases. He asks: “Who's going to be left to perform brain surgery or deliver babies? Uncle Steve?” We told you the Senate is where the May action is. 
Washington’s Governor thinks the state’s system for disciplining bad docs needs serious help. “There is a consensus, I think, among all of us that it’s broken, and it needs — not tinkering — it needs reform,” Gov. Chris Gregoire said after signing the new medical malpractice bill into law. Read about some smart proposed changes. 
In March 2006, the wife and four children of the late actor who died in 2003 at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, reached a settlement with the hospital for his death. Ritter's family alleged that doctors misdiagnosed his condition as a heart attack and failed to provide proper treatment for the tear in his aorta, which led to his death. 
The legendary sportswriter and broadcaster went in for a routine hip replacement surgery at the prestigious Lenox Hill hospital in New York in 2001. Schaap contracted an infection at the hospital and died three months later at the age of 67. After Schaap’s death, his widow Trish said, “I'm so angry because Dick did his--any job that he did, he did very well. He did them to the best of his ability. He didn't leave stones unturned. And all those doctors had to do--they didn't have to be brilliant or geniuses. All they had to do was do their job the way Dick always did his. It's devastating that this is the way he had to die.” The Schaap family filed a lawsuit and the jury found the doctors negligent in their care for Schaap and awarded the family $1.9.
The comedian sued his heart surgeon for operating on the wrong artery when he underwent a double bypass in 1998. The doctor settled for an undisclosed amount, which Carvey donated to charity. Carvey said, “This lawsuit, from the beginning, was about accountability and doing everything I could to make sure that it wouldn't happen to someone else.” 
She underwent surgery in 1997 to remove non-cancerous nodules in her throat. The surgery ended her singing career. She filed a lawsuit claiming she had not been told “the operation carried the risk of permanent hoarseness, ‘irreversible loss of vocal quality’ or other complications that might leave her unable to sing.” It also accused the doctor of operating on both sides of her vocal cord when there was no reason to do anything to the right side. The case was settled in 2000. 
Next month, the U.S. Senate will take another swing at medical malpractice reform. The medical liability bill (
"This isn’t doctors against lawyers,” said Dan Kopen, M.D., an independent general surgeon in Kingston, PA. “It’s people who have a vested interest in the current system versus people who want something better for the population in general…. There are doctors who are becoming very wealthy as part of the current system because they provide expert testimony on a regular basis,”
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