Medical Issues (Injury & Error)

Iatrogenic Vertebral Fracture During Intramedullary Nailing for Femoral Fracture: A Case Report

JBJS Case Connect. 2022 Nov 3;12(4). doi: 10.2106/JBJS.CC.22.00192. eCollection 2022 Oct 1. Yong-Bum Joo 1, Woo-Yong Lee, Young-Mo Kim, Byung-Kuk Ahn Affiliations expand PMID: 36821000 DOI: 10.2106/JBJS.CC.22.00192 Abstract Case: A 73-year-old woman with advanced ankylosing spondylitis (AS) underwent closed reduction and internal fixation using antegrade intramedullary nailing because of midshaft fracture of her right femur. After […]

Respiratory Therapist Charged With Murder 20 Years Later

— Prosecutors allege a spate of odd deaths while Jennifer Anne Hall was employed at the hospital by Kristina Fiore, Director of Enterprise & Investigative Reporting, MedPage Today May 12, 2022 A respiratory therapist has been charged with murder 20 years after a spate of strange deaths and emergencies at a small rural hospital in […]

Illinois Ob/Gyn Gets 3 Years in Prison for Sexual Assaults

— Dozens of patients allege Fabio Ortega, MD, abused them while hospital system turned a blind eye by Sophie Putka, Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today October 22, 2021 Chicago-area ob/gyn Fabio Ortega, MD, was sentenced to 3 years in prison on Tuesday after pleading guilty to two criminal sexual assaults, but the victims’ lawyer […]

Cardiologist Coughs Up $2M for Unnecessary Procedures

— Dinesh Shah, MD, allegedly billed for tests that were unnecessary or never done by Kristina Fiore, Director of Enterprise & Investigative Reporting, MedPage Today March 23, 2021 Cardiologist Dinesh Shah, MD, has paid the U.S. government $2 million to settle charges that he billed federal healthcare programs for diagnostic tests that weren’t necessary or […]

Vascular Surgeon Admits Doing Unnecessary Procedures

— Feng Qin, MD, will pay $800,000 and be excluded from Medicare for 4 years by Kristina Fiore, Director of Enterprise & Investigative Reporting, MedPage Today March 11, 2021 A New York vascular surgeon has admitted guilt and will pay $800,000 to settle charges that he performed unnecessary procedures on patients with kidney disease, according to […]

UTIs Treated Inappropriately Everywhere

— Both uncalled-for drugs and prolonged treatment durations, large-scale review finds by Charles Bankhead, Senior Editor, MedPage Today February 26, 2021 A majority of women with uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) received inappropriate antibiotics or continued treatment beyond the recommended duration, a review of almost 700,000 cases showed. Overall, 46.7% of patients received prescriptions for […]

Doc Convicted for Needless Surgeries

by Kristina Fiore, Director of Enterprise & Investigative Reporting, MedPage Today November 11, 2020 Ob/Gyn Convicted in Unnecessary Hysterectomy Scheme A federal jury convicted Virginia ob/gyn Javaid Perwaiz, MD, on 52 counts related to a scheme to perform unnecessary hysterectomies and other surgeries in order to defraud private and government payers out of millions of […]

Ontario woman finds needle in her spine 16 years after giving birth

Malpractice system stacked against patients, advocate says Rosa Marchitelli · CBC News · Posted: Oct 05, 2020 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: October 5, 2020 When the pain in her shoulders and weakness in her right leg started two years ago, Giovanna Ippolito thought it was just part of getting older — that’s until […]

Surgeons Stole Black Man’s Heart for White Businessman

— First heart transplant in the segregated south by Chip Jones August 12, 2020 The following is an excerpt from The Organ Thieves: The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South by Chip Jones. In May 1968, Bruce Tucker, a Black factory worker, suffered a skull fracture and was rushed to the Medical […]

Sobering Data on Risks of Short-Term Oral Corticosteroids

Sobering Data on Risks of Short-Term Oral Corticosteroids — Short steroid bursts linked to serious adverse events within a month by Nicole Lou, Staff Writer, MedPage Today July 6, 2020 Corticosteroid bursts as short as 2 weeks or less were still linked to severe adverse events among relatively healthy users, according to a large study […]

A Warning From a Doctor Who Has Done Thousands of Steroid Injections for Arthritis

The extremely common treatment might be causing more harm than previously thought. JAMES HAMBLIN OCTOBER 17, 2019 After giving birth to a baby, a young woman told her nurses at Boston Medical Center that she was having pain in her hip. That happens sometimes after births, says Ali Guermazi, one of the doctors involved. As […]

Jaw-dropping medical mix-ups

Terra Sumstine, MDLinx | August 26, 2019 In today’s high-tech, patient-centered healthcare environment, with computerized patient records and charts, it’s hard to believe that medical mistakes are the third leading cause of death in the United States. Medical mistakes resulting in death can range from unrecognized operative complications to mix-ups involving the doses or types […]

Gabapentinoids Tied to Suicidal Behavior and Unintentional Overdose

— New patterns emerge, especially for young people by Judy George, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today June 14, 2019 Gabapentinoid prescriptions were associated with an increased risk of suicidal behavior and unintentional overdose, a population cohort study in Sweden showed. The risks were strongest for people who were prescribed pregabalin (Lyrica) over gabapentin (Neurontin), especially […]

North Texas doctor misplaced 4 screws in woman’s spine and lied about it, lawsuit says

BY KALEY JOHNSON MAY 10, 2019 An x-ray shows where two screws should have been placed in a woman’s spine during surgery and where the screws were improperly inserted instead, according to a lawsuit. DR. BOB BLACKLOCK EXHIBIT IN LESA SWANSON’S LAWSUIT A Hurst woman says her doctor misplaced four screws in her spine during a surgery […]

Doctors in seven states charged with prescribing pain killers for cash, sex

By Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham April 17 at 5:47 PM Dozens of medical professionals in seven states were charged Wednesday with participating in the illegal prescribing of more than 32 million pain pills, including doctors who prosecutors said traded sex for prescriptions and a dentist who unnecessarily pulled teeth from patients to justify giving […]

Rutgers RWJ doctor charged with recording women in bathroom, identity theft in 160-count indictment

Nick Muscavage, Bridgewater Courier News Published 3:48 p.m. ET Feb. 27, 2019 | Updated 10:28 a.m. ET Feb. 28, 2019 NEW BRUNSWICK – A Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School doctor has been charged with photographing more than two dozen women in the bathroom at the city hospital. Dr. James Goydos, 58, a professor of […]

As Many as 12 Deaths Now Linked to Impaired VA Pathologist

Megan Brooks January 29, 2019 A pathologist allegedly working while “impaired” in the Arkansas Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Fayetteville may now have caused the deaths of as many as 12 veterans, local media said January 28. The pathologist, Robert Morris Levy, MD, was fired by the Veterans […]

Surgeon Mistakenly Removes Woman’s Kidney During Back Operation

New York Post By Amanda Woods November 2, 2018 Surgeon Mistakenly Removes Woman’s Kidney During Back Operation Maureen Pacheco, then 51, checked into Wellington Regional Medical Center back in April 2016 to get the bones in her lower back fused in the wake of a car accident, The Palm Beach Post reported.  During the operation, Dr. […]

Undercount Seen in Opioid Deaths

– Closer look increases toll by 70,000 during 1999-2015 by Judy George, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today June 27, 2018 The number of fatal opioid overdoses may have been higher than previously reported, with some states greatly underestimating the effect of opioid-related deaths, an analysis of National Center for Health Statistics data suggests. Potentially 70,000 opioid-related overdose deaths from 1999 to […]

Many US adults take medicines that can cause depression

Reuters Health News | June 13, 2018 More than one-third of American adults take medications that have the potential to cause depression, a US study suggests. These include drugs for birth control, heartburn, allergies, pain, and hypertension. As of 2015, about 38% of adults took one medicine with depression as a known side effect, up […]