Medical Malpractice

When a person visits the doctor’s office or the emergency room of a hospital, they are entitled to receive a certain standard of medical care. Unfortunately, the standard of this “medical care” varies widely from hospital to hospital. In the most extreme incidences, the very hands that are suppose to be helping a patient can ultimately become the cause of their death. Below are examples of why medical malpractice litigation is necessary and ultimately the most effective insurance against insufficient or negligent medical care.

In diagnosing disease, physicians increasingly rely upon pathologists, medical doctors who specialize in the study of changes in cells, tissue and organs. A specimen taken from a patient, generally by biopsy, will be submitted to a laboratory for microscopic examination by a pathologist, who is asked to offer an opinion whether a disease, often cancer, may or may not be present. Treatment decisions are often made exclusively on the opinion of a pathologist. Pathology errors can constitute medical malpractice that lead to devastating patient injuries.

While the concept of medical malpractice normally connotes mistakes made by highly-trained medical professionals, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has recently made clear that the failure to properly perform a normal, every day activity such as bathing a patient can be medical malpractice. In Strine v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a four-member majority of the court has ruled that the act of bathing a totally-dependent-elderly patient is a medical service under Pennsylvania law, thus triggering insurance coverage from Pennsylvania’s former Medical Professional Catastrophe Loss Fund (CAT Fund).