Quality Medical Research
Best medical Practice, Standards of Care
MEDICAL RESEARCH
Make or Break your Case
While professional societies and organizations along with various health organizations, risk management entities and countless other sources may recognize certain practices as "standards", publish position papers on their various views of what constitutes proper and established protocols of medical or nursing care, all are meaningless until expert witness testimony convinces the court of the jury as to the proper Standard of Care. Even then, there may be other, competing yet proper positions of an "acceptable minority" who, while they employ methods, procedures or treatments not yet widely accepted as standard, have proven through research and science based medicine their minority views to be proper.
The "Battle of the Experts" is most often based on research, experience, practice environment, accepted medical texts, journals and other publications leading to the establishment of how the average competent practitioner, similarly situated, would proceed in the care of the same patient. It can also, unfortunately be infected by the political agendas of professional organizations, personal bias, failure to recognize the "acceptable minority" of differences in practice setting (similarly situated).
Equally important can be the lack of one expert in a specialty to be able to recognize and account for, or factor in failures in other specialties, or detrimental care in an area of which he/she is unfamiliar, leaving you with an expert opinion (on either side) which is incomplete, incorrect, or subject to challenge. Without a global view of the ENTIRE care of the patient, you are most likely to not even realize this opportunity. Countless cases have been lost because of the "blinders" and tunnel vision which may develop during case preparation. Some cases truly have a singular issue which may be addressed by one expert, the only expert to have reviewed the records and testify, with you and your client favored by fortune (or which may be addressed by one expert, the only expert to have reviewed the records and testify, with you and your client favored by fortune (or expertise) in your choice of this expert.
The MAJORITY of case, in my experience, no matter how confident the lawyer may be initially be, contain issues and facts missed, complexly hidden in medical science, or purposely kept from view.
Law Med provides high quality, current, or current to the incident date as needed, in-depth medical research on any requested subject. You and your clients are BEST served by our GLOBAL review of the medical care from which we then research issues we identify, providing an integrated and solid basis for your choice of expert witness and the standard of care applicable.
For example, suit is brought against a hospital based on a broken monitor in the ICU that failed to alert the staff that a patient was in distress while suffering a myocardial infarction, delaying response and leading to brain death. There is testimony that conflicts as to whether the monitor failed or the alarms were turned off. The outcome of the case is a toss up. Law Med becomes involved and reviews the entire medical record. Our final report finds negligence in the operating room seven days prior to the ICU event, resulting in an extending period of low blood pressure in this patient with heart disease, during surgery, along with multiple negligent acts over the next week while on a general floor, including a failure to adequately control high blood sugar, untreated anemia, unrecognized myocardial ischemia and infarction, lack of proper treatment of low oxygen levels and more. This is an actual case we worked on! We then present research that establishes the link between intraoperative hypotension and the increased incidence of myocardial infarction in the first postoperative week. Combining research of untreated hyperglycemia and anemia after surgery and the resultant morbidity and mortality, we can establish the basis for your experts in cardiology, anesthesiology, critical care, and endocrinology to present our findings that regardless of the failure of the ICU monitor, the care of the patient was negligent and statistically fatal. A case about a failed monitor, with an expert or two addressing that issue, becomes a case of gross medical negligence almost certain to lead to a fatal outcome, regardless of a working monitor since by the time the incident occurred the patients' fate was sealed. Which case is likely to settle and for how much?
