Syracuse Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

"Bottar Leone, PLLC is presently handling several New York birth injury cases involving permanent disabilities caused by new york obstetrical malpractice and labor and delivery nurses errors made during a nighttime labor and delivery," said Syracuse birth injury attorney Michael A. Bottar, Esq. "Certainly, the outcome of a birth is linked to the time of day a baby is born."

An article published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology entitled "The Night---A Dangerous Time To Be Born?," reported that babies were twice as likely to sustain a birth injury if born during the night (between 7:00 p.m. and 6:59 a.m.), as compared to a daytime birth (between 7:00 a.m. and 6:59 p.m.). A Queensland study
entitled "The Impact of Time of Delivery On Perinatal Outcomes," reported additional troubling statistics. That is, that fetal death rates were highest between 1:00 a.m. and 2:59 a.m. Of note, was that the rate of fetal death was lowest between 11:00 a.m. and 12:59 p.m., and the rate of neonatal death was lowest between 5:00 p.m. and 6:59 p.m.

A German study reported in 2003 linked nighttime delivery dangers to the delivery of substandard medical care, also known as obstetrical medical malpractice and labor and delivery mistakes.According to The March of Dimes, low birth weight babies are at high risk for respiratory distress syndrome (i.e., RSD), intraventricular hemorrhaging (i.e., bleeding in the brain), patent ductus arteriosus (i.e., PDA), necrotizing enterocolitis (i.e., NEC), and retinopathy of prematurity (i.e., ROP).

Continue reading "Medical Malpractice NY: Birth Injury Risk High During Nightime and Weekend Labor and Delivery" »

"Because of confidentiality agreements that insurance companies insist upon following a New York medical malpractice settlement, the public does not know about the number and severity of medical errors. They are common and can be deadly," said Syracuse hospital negligence lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq., of Bottar Leone, PLLC.

The statistics are alarming. According to a study recently released by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), 1 in 7 Medicare patients were harmed by the medical care they received while hospitalized. "14% ?!" Bottar remarked. "We often file claims on behalf of families who suffer a loss due to New York hospital negligence, but we had no idea mistakes were this prevalent."

The OIG study reported that as many as 180,000 patients are harmed annually, with a price tag of $4,400,000,000.00. The study was based on doctors sampling and reviewing medical records of just under 1,000 Medicare patients in 2008. For advice about how to stay safe during a hospital stay, patients should review the Consumer Reports on Health's Staying Safe in the Hospital.

The most common hospital errors include prescription medication dosing errors (receiving too much or too little medication), improperly combining medications, infections, bed sores, equipment malfunction, falls and poor wound care. Wrong site and wrong side surgical errors also occur. Statistics suggest that nearly 50% of hospital mistakes were/are preventable.

Continue reading "New York Hospital Errors Causing Injury and Wrongful Death Are Commonplace" »

According to a 2010 study, more than 225,000 Americans die every year due to medical mistakes. "Medical malpractice is not a myth," said Syracuse medical mistake lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq., of Bottar Leone, PLLC. "That being said, most medical negligence is confined to a very small number of physicians. The majority of physicians will practice for 20-30 years without being the subject of a medical malpractice lawsuit. Of course, they won't say that publicly because it does not help advance tort reform to prevent negligence lawsuits altogether."

Following the NPR series titled "Doctors Behaving Badly," our team of medical negligence attorneys formulated the following list of ways that New York could better protect patients seeking medical care in this State:

Number One: Before licensing a physician in New York, the State should communicate with the licensing bodies of other states. There is no reason for New York not to know why a physician lost his or her license in Florida. It should not be up to physicians seeking licensure in New York to interpret and self-report the actions of another state's administrative agency.

Number Two: Search the National Practitioner Data Bank to determine whether a doctor seeking licensure in New York has a disciplinary history and, if so, the details of the history. According to reports, states seldom query the registry. Why not?

Number Three: Interact with local and state agencies to be in a position to learn about publicly available information, such as when a physician is arrested. It should not be up to physicians to self-report their indiscretions.

Number Four: While much of medicine is an art not a science, there are aspects of medicine that have absolute standards of care. Why not codify the standards and force physicians to follow them or face civil liability?

Number Five: Create a process whereby the worst physicians cannot continue to practice, similar to three-strikes-and-you're-out. After a specific number of mistakes, or perhaps after a single egregious error, a physician's license to practice medicine should be in jeopardy. Many successful physicians are not concerned about medical malpractice lawsuits because they can afford to pay insurance premiums and, beyond that, it is almost impossible for them to lose their license.

Number Six: Doctors in need of help, such as rehabilitation or therapy, should have access to necessary services. Inpatient and outpatient treatment should be readily available to ensure that good doctors sidelined by personal issues are not exiled and can return to the field quickly once rehabilitated.

Number Seven: Physician disciplinary histories should be word-searchable and easy to find. It should be easy for patients and boards to find out about a doctor by way of a Google search.

Number Eight: A doctor's track record should be publicly available forever so that a board and/or potential patient can decide if a transgression in the doctor's past is something to be concerned with. There is no reason for disciplinary records to be purged after, e.g., 5 or 7 years. A mistake 8 or 9 years ago may be relevant to someone's decision making process.

Number Nine: If there is too much information to mine and process, then help should be recruited.

Number Ten: Patients should be provided a centralized venue to share their views about a doctor, subject to review by a moderator to prevent abuse. Often, patients have the best information about whether a doctor is a great healthcare provider or otherwise. All doctors to reply to patient comments. The dialogue should make its way into board decision-making.

Continue reading "10 Ways To Cut Down On Medical Malpractice In Syracuse New York" »

"Bottar Leone, PLLC is presently prosecuting several New York medical malpractice lawsuits concerning the wrongful death of an infant from Group B streptococcus," said Michael A. Bottar, Esq., a Syracuse birth injury lawyer. "Even though GBS is the leading cause of infectious death in infants, it often goes untreated. Many pregnant mothers do not receive Penicillin when they should and the delayed diagnosis of GBS can be deadly.

In an effort to decrease the number of GBS infections, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines in 2002 which required that all women undergo vaginal-rectal screening for GBS colonization between 35 and 37 weeks of gestation. Recently, the CDC released the 2010 Group B strep guidelines which modified the manner in which women presenting in preterm labor are to be treated. Under the 2010 guidelines, doctors are required to obtain a GBS culture when the woman presents to the hospital and start an antibiotic regimen. If the woman progresses into full labor, the antibiotics should continue through delivery. If, after observation, medical staff determine that the woman is not in labor, then the antibiotics should be discontinued. No longer should antibiotics be continued for 48 hours.

An abdominal delivery (i.e., a cesarean section) does not eliminate the risk of GBS transmission. Group B strep can be passed from mother to baby even through intact membranes and in the absence of labor (although the risk is low). This is why antibiotics should be administered at least 4 hours before delivery.

If you were never tested for GBS, or tested positive for GBS but were not treated with antibiotics, and your baby was born with signs and symptoms of early onset GBS (e.g., breathing problems, blood pressure instability, heart rate instability, kidney problems, sepsis, or meningitis), you may benefit from speaking with a New York attorney with a practice limited to medical malpractice and birth injury claims.

Continue reading "Syracuse New York Birth Injury From Group B Strep Can Be Avoided With Antibiotics" »

Severe sepsis affects more than 750,000 people every year. "Our New York medical malpractice lawyers often file lawsuits alleging that a doctor or hospital failed to diagnose sepsis before it was too late," said Syracuse wrongful death lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq., an attorney presently prosecuting several sepsis-based lawsuits.

The failure to diagnose sepsis is a common error. Unfortunately, sepsis, which is also known as blood poisoning, can result in a wrongful death. More than 200,000 every year. "It is the leading cause of death in the non-coronary ICU," Bottar added.

Fortunately, help may be on the way. A new credit-card sized device being tested in Germany may aid physicians in quickly diagnosis sepsis. The tool, called MinoLab, may enable a doctor to diagnose sepsis in as little as 1 hour. Presently, analysis can take as long as 48 hours.

Signs and symptoms of sepsis include a fever, chills, severe shaking, tachycardia (i.e., high heart rate), low blood pressure, confusion, a decrease in urine output, and painful joints. If sepsis is timely diagnosed, it can be treated with intravenous antibiotics, vasopressors and corticosteroids, as well as intravenous fluids and surgery if the source of the infection can be identified and removed. Sepsis is a medical emergency. One out of of every 3 patients who develop "severe" sepsis will die within 30 days.

Continue reading "New York Failure To Diagnose Sepsis Lawsuits To Decline With MinoLab Test" »

"Even though an appendicitis is a clinical emergency, it is commonly misdiagnosed," said Syracuse pediatric malpractice lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq., of Bottar Leone, PLLC. As many as 1 out of every 5 cases of appendicitis is not diagnosed before the appendix perforates (i.e., ruptures), which can lead to serious health problems including a periappendiceal abscess, peritonitis, an intestinal blockage, sepsis and death.

An appendicitis, or inflammation of the appendix, is caused by an obstruction of the appendiceal lumen. Signs and symptoms of an appendicitis, which typically strikes between the ages of 2 and 30, include (1) diffuse abdominal pain developing over 4-48 hours, (2) nausea, (3) vomiting, and (4) loss of appetite. When acute (i.e., inflamed), it is a "surgical" disease, meaning that it is treated by surgery as opposed to antibiotics. Surgery to remove the appendix is known as an appendectomy.

New York has one of the highest densities of pediatricians in the United States, with more than 150 pediatricians for every 100,000 children (second only to Massachusetts). This is a reassuring statistic because, according to a recent Reuters Health article titled Fewer Pediatricians, More Ruptured Appendixes, children who live in areas adequately staffed with pediatricians are more like to be timely diagnosed with an appendicitis and, in turn, are at 12% lower risk for rupture. According to the study underlying the Reuters article, a child's proximity to a hospital, emergency room doctor and/or surgeon did not decrease risk. Statistically, access to pediatricians seems to make all of the difference in avoiding complications from an appendicitis.

Continue reading "Failure To Diagnose Appendicitis Low Due To Number Of Pediatricians In New York" »

Jaundice, which is the clinical manifestation of hyperbilirubinemia (too much bilirubin in the blood), occurs in about one-half of term newborns as well as most premature babies (85%). Elevated bilirubin levels are also associated with low birth weight babies, sepsis, delivery requiring instrumentation, and history of maternal diabetes.

"Hyperbilirubinemia is also associated with epidural anesthesia and Oxtyocin," said Syracuse birth injury lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq., of Bottar Leone, PLLC. "Epidural anesthesia is the most popular mode of pain relief during labor and, while it is widely believed that regional anesthetics present little if any risk to an unborn baby, this is not true in all cases." Epidural anesthesia is associated with fetal respiratory depression, decreased fetal heart rate, fetal malpresentation, and difficulty breastfeeding after birth. Likewise, Oxytocin (i.e., Pitocin) may also cause hyperbilirubinemia.

Where a pregnant mother receives an epidural, or where labor is augmented by Oxytocin to stimulate contractions, the obstetrician and labor and delivery nurses should be on alert for newborn hyperbilirubinemia Neonatologists and pediatricians should also conduct appropriate surveillance by testing serum bilirubin levels.

While too much bilirubin in a baby's blood is easily treated by phototherapy (or an exchange transfusion in severe cases), it can lead to permanent brain damage if the diagnosis is not made early. Baby brain damage caused by exposure to too much bilirubin is known as kernicterus. Kernicterus can cause cerebral palsy and other permanent disabilities such as long-term hearing loss, behavioral problems, and bilirubin induced neurological dysfunction (BIND).

Continue reading "Link Between Newborn Jaundice, Epidural Anesthesia and Oxytocin Reviewed By Syracuse New York Birth Injury Lawyer" »

The kidneys are an essential part of the urinary system. They act as a natural blood filter and, as part of that process, divert waste products to the bladder where they are excreted through urine.

According to New York medical malpractice lawyer Anthony S. Bottar, Esq., a Bottar Leone, PLLC attorney handling Syracuse kidney failure lawsuits, "medical advancements have enabled physicians to diagnose kidney disease and kidney failure sooner and sooner. In turn, kidney dialysis is bring initiated earlier than ever. This may not be a positive development."

Guidelines released by the United States National Kidney Foundation provide that dialysis should not begin until a patient has been diagnosed with stage 5 kidney disease. A study recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported that the timing of dialysis bears directly on mortality (i.e., death). Approximately 25,000 patients were included in the study. Researchers followed whether each received "early" or "late" dialysis, based upon testing of the glomerular filtration rates. About 30% of the patients started "early," with a GFR greater than 10.5. The balance started "late." Surprisingly, those who started "early" had an 18% increased risk of death.

"It is well-known that the failure to diagnose advanced kidney disease is medical malpractice, this study suggests that a nephrologist may also be liable for the wrongful death of a patient by starting dialysis too soon."

Continue reading "Premature Dialysis Could Lead to New York Wrongful Death Lawsuit" »

"The failure to diagnose gestational diabetes during pregnancy is a big problem," said Syracuse birth injury lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq., of Bottar Leone, PLLC, a legal team representing the catastrophically injured throughout the State of New York.

4-12% of pregnancies are complicated by gestational diabetes. A recent study of 900,000 American women published in Obstetrics and Gynecology reports that as many as 1 in 3 pregnant women are not receiving a simple laboratory test to check for diabetes mellitus, also known as gestational diabetes. The failure to test for and the failure to diagnose gestational diabetes is obstetrical malpractice that places a pregnant mother and her baby at risk for complications, including preeclampsia, premature birth, macrosomic babies and neonatal hypoglycemia. Where timely diagnosed, gestational diabetes can be treated by controlling glucose by diet, as well as exercise and insulin.

The study titled Gaps In Diabetes Screening During Pregnancy and Postpartum also revealed that as many as 1 in 5 pregnant women who developed gestational diabetes while pregnant were screened for diabetes within 6 months after pregnancy. This means that many pregnant mothers developed diabetes that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for a significant period of time after birth. This is well below the standard of care, as current medical guidelines require that women with gestational diabetes be tested for diabetes 6 to 12 weeks after delivery.

The study also revealed that obese women, who have the highest risk for developing gestational diabetes, were the least likely to be tested. Women weighing more than 275 pounds were 12% less likely to receive testing, but were 348% more likely to have gestational diabetes. Women weighing more than 300 pounds were 6% less likely to receive testing, but were 300% more likely to have gestational diabetes.

Continue reading "Failure To Diagnose Gestational Diabetes Is Common New York Medical Malpratice" »

"Recent reports suggest that cesarean section rates are on the rise because women are asking for surgery, as opposed to delivering vaginally. This appears incorrect," said Syracuse birth injury lawyer Anthony S. Bottar, of Bottar Leone, PLLC, a law firm with decades of experience handling birth injury lawsuits throughout he state of New York, including those concerning fetal brain damage due to a delayed c-section.

According to Reuters Health, a recent study of nearly 20,000 women around the world revealed that c-section rates are rising even though women are not asking for abdominal deliveries. Only sixteen percent (16%) of the women in the study indicated that they would prefer a cesarean section to vaginal delivery. This means than roughly 84% of pregnant mothers prefer vaginal delivery. Among women who had a c-section previously, approximately twenty-nine percent (29%) said that they would like their next delivery to be by cesarean section. Seventy-one percent (71%) said that they wanted a vaginal birth after cesarean section (VBAC).

According to a study discussed in our blog post titled "Study Will Make Central New York VBACs More Available Despite Risk of Uterine Rupture and Baby Brain Damage," a vaginal birth after cesarean section may not be as dangerous as doctor's once believed. "We disagree,, especially if labor is augmented" Syracuse VBAC lawyer Michael A. Bottar said. "We have clients who experienced uterine rupture during a trial of labor encouraged by an obstetrician or midwife. VBAC is not right for everyone."

Continue reading "Cesarean Sections Rise In New York Even Though Women Are Not Requesting Surgery" »

"The failure to diagnose cancer is one of the most common types of New York medical malpractice lawsuits," said Syracuse lawyer Michael A. Bottar, Esq., of Bottar Leone, PLLC.

A new blood test developed by several Boston scientists will be brought to the market in the very near future through a partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Unlike currently available tests that can find tumor cells in blood, the new test dubbed a "liquid biopsy" will be able to capture whole cells that doctors can analyze. The new test can find one cancer cell in a billion or more healthy cells by using a microchip covered with 78,000 tiny posts that are coated with antibodies that bind with tumor cells when found. When blood cells are run over the hair-like posts, healthy cells "bounce off" and cancer cells "stick."

"Metastatic disease and death due late diagnosis of cancer should decrease," Bottar added. Historically, doctors administer a drug or therapy and have to wait months to perform imaging (e.g., a CT scan) to determine if the tumor has decreased in size. Many patients do not live long enough for oncologists to find a drug or therapy that works. The new test is promising because doctors will be able to determine, within a day or two, whether a particular cancer treatment is working.

Continue reading "New Blood Test Should Decrease Number of New York Failure To Diagnose Cancer Lawsuits" »