Health Malpractice Research Articles

Failure to fortify staple foods with folic acid-still public health malpractice.

Failure to fortify staple foods with folic acid-still public health malpractice.

Making the Case for Genocide, the Forced Sterilization of Indigenous Peoples of Peru

Peru’s national health program Programa de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar (PSRPF) aimed to uphold women’s reproductive rights and address the scarcity in maternity related services. Despite these objectives, during PSRPF’s implementation the respect for women’s rights were undermined with the forced sterilization of women predominantly of indigenous, poor, and rural backgrounds. This study considers the forced sterilization of indigenous women as a genocide. Making the case for genocide has not been done previously with this particular case. Using the normative markers of the Genocide Convention, this study categorically sets forced sterilization victims from the state-led-policy as victims of genocide, considering the effects the health malpractice had on victims’ reproductive rights and the prevention of births of future indigenous populations. In doing so, this study proves the genocidal intent from the state to destroy in whole or in part, an ethnic minority group.

Numerous Sessions to Address One of Psychiatry’s Most Difficult Topics

Numerous Sessions to Address One of Psychiatry’s Most Difficult Topics

When the Shrinks Ignore Science, Sue Them

A sizable minority of mental health professionals continue to use treatment methods that are totally lacking in scientific support, some of which harm their patients. Particularly when a treatment has been demonstrated to be harmful and effective evidence-based treatments are available, they should be liable for malpractice. We need malpractice reform in the mental health arena, but not as it is usually conceived. Unlike lawsuits against other medical professionals, lawsuits against psychiatrists and psychologists continue to be exceptionally rare, and successful suits even rarer. Mental health practitioners have escaped liability for using scientifically unproven or even harmful treatments by relying on prevailing community practices – no matter how misguided – to define the permissible standards of care. A defendant can always round up some like-minded practitioners who will testify that the treatment in question is practiced, even if scientifically unfounded. But plaintiffs can and should make use of the Supreme Court case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993), which requires that expert testimony be based upon “reliable scientific knowledge” rather than common practice, to make their claims viable. We discuss the implications of Daubert for mental health malpractice litigation and the beneficial role such litigation can have in making mental health care more scientifically based, the proper role for clinical judgment in the context of evidence-based practice, and the need for practice guidelines and consumer education.

Doomsday postponed? Preventing and reversing epidemics of drug-resistant tuberculosis

Extensively drug-resistant (XDR) strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, now known to be present in 50 countries, heighten the threat posed by untreatable and fatal human tuberculosis (TB). To combat epidemics of drug-resistant TB, it is vital to understand why some resistant strains have greater reproductive fitness--a greater propensity to spread--than drug-susceptible strains. If public health malpractice has been a more important determinant of reproductive success than genetic mechanisms, then improved diagnosis and treatment could keep the frequency of resistant strains among TB cases low in any population. Recent data suggest that national TB control programmes that use existing drugs efficiently can postpone and even reverse epidemics of multidrug-resistant TB, although the effect of such programmes on XDR strains remains largely unknown.

Legal Issues in Home Care: Current Trends, Risk-Reduction Strategies, and Opportunities for Improvement

Home health nurse malpractice litigation and judgments are increasing. The legal and home health practice environments are evolving in streams of tumultuous change. The legal view of nurse practice lags behind the realities of nurse practice. Evidence-based practice is evolving and becoming the expected standard of practice. This article summarizes the current home health malpractice trends and identifies current factors affecting change in both the legal and home health environments. Strategies and resources to reduce nurse malpractice risk in home care are discussed.

Avoiding the malpractice snare: documenting suicide risk assessment.

Guest columnists SKIP SIMPSON, JD, and MICHAEL STACY, JD, are attorneys with Simpson & Stacy, a Professional Corporation, in Dallas, Texas. They focus on representing plaintiffs in mental health malpractice actions. They are featured in an upcoming book, The Suicide Lawyers: Exposing Lethal Secrets, by C.C. Risenhoover.

Inertia on folic acid fortification: public health malpractice.

Inertia on folic acid fortification: public health malpractice.

Liability and mental health services.

Under the current tort-malpractice system, mental health malpractice claims often harm defendants' reputations, disrupt relationships among providers, and breach patient confidentiality. Common areas of malpractice, together with difficulties in defining the standard of care and proving causation, are examined. Reform proposals involving the options of interdisciplinary compensation panels or binding arbitration are designed to protect plaintiff privacy, reduce time and cost of litigation, and increase satisfaction with the dispute resolution process.

Mandatory Testing for HIV

To the Editor. —Dr Francis' 1 well-articulated article about the inability of the CDC to proceed with appropriate and vigorous response to the HIV epidemic was alarming. It has long been my suspicion, as well as (I am sure) that of many practicing physicians, that the political response to this unprecedented and extremely serious epidemic was as Francis states, health malpractice! Furthermore, as Francis mentions, this indefensible reaction of politicians in the past two administrations has led to the death of many individuals who might not otherwise have died. Furthermore, it has led to the infection of many thousands more individuals with HIV than might otherwise have occurred. I find it disturbing that this article is a text of Francis' retirement speech. This implies to me that Francis did not feel comfortable going public with his appropriate views prior to his retirement. Perhaps concerned scientists and physicians at the

How and when to correct for juror hindsight bias in mental health malpractice litigation: Some preliminary observations

AbstractThis article examines the hindsight bias in the context of mental health malpractice litigation, analyzes various legal mechanisms for dealing with the bias, and discusses whether the law should strive for debiasing in all mental health malpractice cases.

Recent developments in psychiatric malpractice

AbstractCommon issues of mental health liability are examined in relationship to recent legislative and case law. Matters of practical importance to practitioners including the applicability insurance coverage to punitive damage awards of arising from malpractice are addressed. Specific legal doctrines involving proof of liability, proximate cause and the standard of care are explored as they relate to mental health malpractice cases.