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A Los Angeles jury has awarded a California family $7.3 million in a medical malpractice lawsuit concerning a hospital’s failure to diagnose and treat a child suffering from meningitis. The jury unanimously awarded the five year old damages for her injury which has left her brain damaged, The defendant in the case was the neonatal intensive care unit at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center. The case is eerily reminscent of cases that Goldberg & Goldberg, LLC has litigated in the Chicago area, including The Circuit Court of Cook County.

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Meningitis is an inflamation, or infection, of the meninges which is a sheath-like protective covering over the brain and spinal cord. Meningitis is dangerous because of the close proximity of the meninges to the brain and spinal cord and the risk of devastating brain injury and paralysis. Children don’t often present with classic signs of meningitis, like a stiff neck. Meningitis is diagnosed by sampling the cerebrospinal fluid which can yield proof of an infection of the meninges shortly after samples are obtained.

The typical treatment for meningitis is a prompt regiment of antibiotic and antiviral medication. Left untreated, meningitis can lead to deafness, hydrocephalus, epilipsy and cognitive brain damage.

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The New Jersey state Supreme Court overturned that state’s largest medical malpractice verdict ever, a jury award of $70 million. The reason the case was overturned was because the jury was exposed to medical professionals and the defendant hospital during the jury selection process.

In a 6-0 decision, Justice Helen Hoens wrote for the court, “In light of the relentless and unchecked litany of complaints throughout the selection process, the attorneys had no way of knowing which of the potential jurors who had expressed no bias might later find it impossible to put aside what they had heard from those who had been excused,”

The case involved a 4 month old child who was deprived of oxygen to his brain during surgery to remove a tumor at the base of his spine. The little boy now is catastrophically brain injured and has profound neurological impairment. A new trial is expected.

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Chicago is home to over 70,000 licensed attorneys. Finding a lawyer that is right for you can be a daunting task. The internet and the television airwaves are flooded with advertisements for lawyers that promise big settlements and no fees unless you win. The question you need to ask yourself and the lawyer that you interview is are you qualified, by the nature of your prior experience, to handle my case and see it through to the bitter end.

Medical Malpractice is a very expensive and specialized area of practice. Lawyers who handle medical malpractice litigation typically spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless man hours prosecuting a succesful claim. The skills necessary to be a succesful practicioner are not learned overnight. At Goldberg & Goldberg, LLC we have been in the medical malpractice business for more then forty years. The least experienced member of our firm has been handling medical cases for fifteen years. We work up and try all of our cases ourselves. We can, and routinely do, take appellate matters before the state supreme court. We have represented litigants in all manner of litigation in more then twenty different states.

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When you interview a lawyer that you have become acquainted with over the internet or through a television advertisement ask him if he handles his cases himself or refers them out to a more experienced lawyer. Ask how many medical malpractice jury trials he has taken to verdict as a first chair lawyer. Ask him or her about past results and ask to see jury verdict reports to document his experience. At Goldberg & Goldberg, LLC we have had hundreds of verdicts and settlements in excess of $1 million. We have the largest personal injury verdict in Illinois history. Our track record speaks for itself. We would be happy to show you examples of some of our results in court.

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Victim’s of medical malpractice at Chicago area hospitals should not expect an apology from those doctors or the hospital that is at fault for their injury. It has long been the custom and practice of Chicago area physicians to never dare to apologize or admit any mistakes, no matter how devastating.

Not so at the University of Michigan. Doctors there say that admitting their mistakes upfront and offering fair financial compensation saves time, money and hurt feelings. According to a 2009 article in the Journal Of Health And Life Sciences law, the effectiveness of taking responsibility of medical mistakes goes beyond common decency. According to the article, malpractice claims against a health system with a policy of offering early apologies and settlements fell from 121 in 2001 to 61 in 2006, while the backlog of open claims went from 262 in 2001 to 106 in 2006 and 83 in 2007. Between 2001 and 2007, the average time to process a claim fell from about 20 months to about eight months, costs per claim were halved and insurance reserves dropped by two-thirds.

There is evidence that this approach is catching on in the Chicago area. Apparently the University of Illinois is considering adopting an apologize and settler early approach to adjusting malpractice claims. This type of forward thinking makes sense from both a financial and humanitarian perspective.

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Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been named as a defendant in a civil sexual assault complaint filed in Washoe County District Court in Reno, Nevada, according to the Associated Press. The lawsuit accuses the former superbowl champion of assaulting a woman in July of 2008. Apparently Mr. Roethlisberger is one of nine defendants listed in the complaint.

“Ben has never sexually assaulted anyone … The timing of the lawsuit and the absence of a criminal complaint and a criminal investigation are the most compelling evidence of the absence of any criminal conduct. If an investigation is commenced, Ben will cooperate fully and Ben will be fully exonerated,” David Cornwell, Roethlisberger’s lawyer, said in a statement released early Tuesday.

Roethlisberger played his college ball at Miami (OH) and was the 2004 AP Rookie of the Year. At the age of 23 Roethlisberger became the youngest Superbowl champion quarterback in NFL history, captaining the Steelers to a 21-10 victory over the Seattle Seahawks in Superbowl XL. He won a second superbowl last season, defeating the Arizona Cardinals in Superbowl XLIII.

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A 35 year old Chicago man was killed and 4 others were seriously injured early Sunday morning in a car accident in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. The 5 vehicle crash occured at 3:30 am at the intersection of 31st Street and California.

One of the vehicles involved in the crash fled the scene and its occupants are wanted for questioning by the Chicago Police. The crash is currently under investigation by the Major Accident Investigation Unit of the CPD.

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The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Dr. Nicholas Caro is facing disciplinary charges from The Illinois Department of Professional Regulation after being sued for medical malpractice 50 times in Cook County.

In the complaint against Dr. Nicholas Caro, the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation claims Caro failed to properly diagnose a patient’s keratoconus, a pre-existing eye condition that should have ruled him out as a candidate for Lasik surgery. Caro has yet to respond to the allegations. The agency is asking that Caro’s license be suspended or revoked because of his conduct.

The IDPR has been criticized for not aggresively prosecuting physicians who repeatedly subject their patients to risky and harmful medical care and treatment. The IDPR is the Illinois state agency empowered to discipline a doctor’s license in the case of misconduct.

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The second federal lawsuit against the Marion, Illinois Veteran’s Hospital has settled in the wake of substandard care at the hospital which resulted in the Hospital suspending surgical procedures for the past two years. Surgeries at the hospital were halted after the Veteran’s Administration found that patients had died at the facility due to substandard care and treatment. The terms of the settlement are undisclosed.

The VA has been critical of the marion facility, finding its prior administration to be dysfunctional and inefficient. The Veteran’s Administration has been under harsh criticism for the operation of its hospitals which has been highlighted by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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A study prepared by the Chicago Reporter shows that black Chicago area nursing home residents receive the worst quality care in the country. There is just one nursing home in the Chicago area rated excellent by the federal government where the majority of the patients are black. These homes have more federal violations, medical malpractice and personal injury claims against them then majority white nursing homes.

The Reporter analyzed records from over 15,000 nursing homes nationwide in order to determine whether disparities exist in the quality of care based on a variety of factors, including race. The Reporter found that the worst rating was given to 57% of Chicago area nursing homes where the patient population was majority black.

Nursing homes have to comply with a variety of state and federal regulations that govern the quality of care required of their patients. There is a particular need to regulate nursing homes as they are usually operated as a for profit business and the patients are typically infirm and/or elderly. In 1987 the federal government passed The Omnibus Budget Reconcilliation Act which outlined the rights of nursing home patients, including the right to be properly evaluated at the time of admission and regularly thereafter as well as the right to have a doctor care for them.

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In the July issue of The Journal Of Obstetrics And Gynecology the American College of Obstetrics & Gynecology (“ACOG”) is rolling out its revised practice guideline for Fetal Heart Monitoring. According to the New York Times, the college hopes the new guidelines will do away with inconsistent interpretations and cause a reduction in the rate of caesarean sections, which is as high as 40% in cities like Chicago, New York and Philadelphia.

More then 85% of the more than four million babies born in the United States are subjected to continuous fetal heart monitoring. The force behind the revised ACOG guidelines, Dr. George Macones, a Washington University OB/GYN, believes that continuous fetal heart monitoring became the standard of care before studies could be done to show that the benefits of monitoring outweigh the risk of caesarian section. The college believes that fetal heart monitoring has caused a rise in caesarian section and forcep deliveries, is used by lawyers to bolster meritless malpractice claims and has not reduced the incidence of Cerebral Palsy and/or fetal death.

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