Personal Injury Attorneys - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island and the Bronx

Part and parcel of many types of claims for bodily injuries is the medical examination conducted by a physician designated by an insurance company. This can occur in contexts including a personal injury lawsuit, a claim for motor vehicle no-fault benefits, a disability claim or a workers compensation claim. Once in a while one of our clients complains that they were injured by the insurance company doctor, although no one, as far as we know, has gone so far as to try to sue the doctor. But if a client did sue, would it be considered an action for medical malpractice or for negligence? It made a difference in Bazakos v. Lewis, --- N.E.2d---, 2009 WL 1765980 (N.Y., 2009), a 4-3 split Court of Appeals decision dated June 24, 2009, because the suit was commenced after the 2 -year

A principal underlying assumption regarding limits on and ethics guidelines addressing pharmaceutical promotion is that smaller gifts are unlikely to exert influence on prescribing decisions. Nonetheless, a substantial body of marketing and psychology literature suggests that even trivial items can exert influence irrespective of economic value. Adding a small gift such as personalized mailing labels, a pen or a coffee mug to a solicitation for donations has been shown to significantly increase donations. These types of gifts can also influence prescribing behavior, according to a study that appears in The Archives of Internal Medicine. (Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(9):887-893). The experiment found that exposure to these items results in more favorable attitudes toward marketed products and that medical school policies that restrict pharmaceutical marketing mitigate this effect. The study was designed to measure the influence of exposure to branded promotional items on rel

Cataract surgery is the most commonly performed operation in the United States today, with nearly 2 million cataract operations performed in the United States each year. Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), an enlarged prostate, is common in older men, affecting nearly 3 out of 4 men by the age of 70 years. BPH is often treated with tamsulosin hydrochloride (Flomax), an alpha-blocking drug that accounted for more than $1 billion in sales in 2007. This BPH/cataract combination is dangerous: A study to assess the risk of adverse events following cataract surgery in older men prescribed Flomax found that exposure to tamsulosin within 14 days of cataract surgery was significantly associated with serious postoperative ophthalmic adverse events. The researchers discovered that those who took Flomax two weeks before the procedure were 2.3 time

Studies have found that when patients leave the hospital without clear understanding of their diagnoses, medication instructions, or need for primary care follow-up, chances are that they will wind up back in the emergency department, and many will be readmitted. Questions are being asked within the medical community whether the standards of care relating to hospitals discharge instructions and follow-up are in fact inadequate and costly to the system by resulting in unnecessary rehospitalizations. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (April 2, 2009) found that Medicare patients discharged from a hospital are frequently readmitted within a few months, a situation sometimes referred to as bounce-back admissions. In the study, the cost of unplanned rehospitalizations in 2004 was estimated to account for US$17.4 billion of the $102.6 billion in hospital payments from Medicare. The researchers a

The plaintiff alleged, in Cronin v. Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, --- N.Y.S.2d ----, 2009 WL 711761 (March 17, 2009), that the defendant wrongfully prolonged the decedent's life by resuscitating him on two occasions against the express instructions of the decedent and his family as contained in two Do-Not-Resuscitate orders issued by the hospital and executed by members of the decedent's family. The Appellate Division, Second Department, affirmed the granting of summary judgment in favor of the defendant and dismissing the complaint on the ground that the plaintiff was asserting a claim for wrongful living and that no such cause of action can be maintained. The status of being alive does not constitute an injury in New York, said the Court. The decision indicates, however, that had the plaintiff submitted evidence raising a triable issue of fact as to whether the decedent was injured as a result of the resuscitati

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced on March 13, 2009, agreements with five partners to study the effects of anesthetics and sedatives on the neurocognitive development of infants and young children. Exposure to some anesthetics and sedatives is associated with memory and learning deficits and other neurodegenerative changes in the central nervous system, according to research using juvenile animal models by the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR). Insufficient human data exists to either support or refute the possibility that similar effects could occur in children. The FDA hopes to develop this data through the Safety of Key Inhaled and Intravenous Drugs in Pediatrics (SAFEKIDS) Initiative. The SAFEKIDS Initiative is a multi-year project designed to address major gaps in scientific information about the safe use of anesthetics and sedatives received by millions of children each year. The FDA's research partners in the SAFEKIDS

Our office is currently representing a client who sustained what appears to be permanent scarring as a result of undergoing laser hair removal. However, the laser hair removal center involved has gone out of business to the chagrin of, as readily apparent from the internet, many former customers of the facility. An apparent owner of the facility, a non-physician, has boasted on the internet that any judgment a customer might obtain in court for the facilitys breach of contract by not rendering services that had been paid for would be a useless judgment against his defunct corporation that would never be collected. But an important question arises: Isnt there supposed to be a doctor supervising the laser procedure?

In Lizardi v. Westchester County Health Care Corp, 1990/03, a father is seeking to recover damages for the wrongful death of his 7-month infant son Marc Ryan Lizardi who was strangled by his mother, Susan Moody, on February 25^th, 2001. The infant's father is suing Dr. Scott Marder, who was not the treating physician for Ms. Moody during her admission to defendant Stony Lodge Hospital, but had treated her on at least one occasion during that stay during the weeks preceding the tragic event. The doctor made a pre-answer motion to have the case dismissed against him pursuant to CPLR section 3211(a) arguing that he owes no legal duty to the infant or to the plaintiff father. The motion to dismiss was denied by Hon. Mary H. Smith in a decision dated November 13^th, 2008.

The plaintiff in Antaki v. Lerman sued North Shore University Hospital Plainview and Craig C. Lerman, MD alleging that he was the victim of medical malpractice in the hospital's emergency room for failure to diagnose the presence of the bacteria C-difficile in his colon, which failure ultimately led to undergo surgery including a subtotal colonoscopy for the removal of the mega colon. The defendants requested that the trial court permit the jury to consider allocating total liability not only among the defendants, but also against the plaintiff's father and his uncle, both of whom are physicians.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced that companies marketing unapproved ophthalmic balanced salt solutions (BSS) and unapproved topical drug products containing papain must stop manufacturing these products on or before November 24, 2008, and must stop shipping such unapproved products on or before January 21, 2009, or risk enforcement action. FDA is taking these actions because it has received reports of serious adverse events associated with their uses, including eye inflammation, cloudy vision, permanent loss of visual acuity, a serious drop in blood pressure and increased heart rate. Ophthalmic balanced salt solutions are used to irrigate the eye during surgery on the eye, including cataract and other ocular procedures. The FDA's action does not affect approved ophthalmic BSS products such as approved versions of BSS made by Alcon and Akorn. No topical drug product containing papain has been approved by the FDA. After the above dates, all topi