New Guidelines to Diagnose Mild Brain Injury
The American College of Emergency Physicians has established new guidelines to be used in diagnosing mild traumatic brain injury.
Serious but Undiagnosed Injury
We have been investigating potential personal injury claims against Bayer Inc. the manufacturer of the drug Trasylol (Aprotinin) for almost a year now.
In January 2006, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that of the 4,400 heart surgery patients who received Trasylol:
1. Trasylol increased the risk of stroke by 181%;
A “multi-million dollar” class action law suit has been filed against drug manufacturer Bayer Inc. for injuries allegedly caused by the drug Trasylol (also known as Aprotinin)
CTV News has reported that a number of class action lawsuits have been filed in the United States. Now patients in Canada have filed a similar lawsuit.
Bayer Inc. withdrew Trasylol from the market after medical research studies showed that patients treated with the drug were more likely to die than patients treated with other medication.
Here we go again. Prince Edward Island’s Department of Health has been investigating a radiologist (currently on leave) because of what the Department describes as an “unacceptably high” error rate.
However, despite the fact that the radiologist’s mistakes may have an impact on the health and safety of patients in Prince Edward Island, the Department has refused to make the report public.
CBC has reported that Dr. Karunamoy Das has been on leave since an independent audit of his work showed that his interpretation of CT scans, MRI images, x-rays, and ultrasound images had an error rate of 12%. The Department of Health ordered a complete review of all 5,700 diagnostic images that Dr. Das reviewed.
For years insurance companies and their lawyers have been telling chronic pain victims: “…it’s all in your head!”
Defendants Claim Chronic Pain Isn’t Real
Insurance companies hire psychiatrists to produce reports claiming that the chronic pain victim’s pain is the result of a psychiatric illness, accuse the victim of malingering or come up with a bogus diagnosis like compensation neurosis.
A number of Canadian hospitals are reusing “single-use” medical devices (SUDs) that are supposed to be disposed of after being used. Worse yet, the vast majority of hopitals that are reusing the medical devices are sterilizing the devices in-house. Infection control experts have criticised the practice as being “fraught with risk”, according to a story by the Canadian Press.
…tragedies like the tainted blood scandal and cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease — the human form of mad cow disease — linked to reuse of tools used in brain surgery have deepened the understanding of infection risks and raised the bar for infection control in hospitals.No Regulations:
The story reports that while there appears to be consensus among health care professionals that a national policy is needed and that the practice of in-house reprocessing ought to be banned, a regulatory void means that in many parts of the country hospitals can do as they wish when it comes to reuse of single-use medical devices.
Dangerous drivers suffering from alcohol abuse, cardiac disease and neurologic disorders are not being reported by their doctors; and doctors may be committing medical malpractice for failing to comply with provincial laws.
A recent report in the medical journal Open Medicine found that between 1996 and 2001 37% of drivers admitted to a trauma unit with injuries from car accidents had a reportable medical condition that made them unfit to drive.
Most of the patients (85%) had seen a doctor in the year before the crash, and 14 per cent had even seen a doctor a week before their crash. But only three per cent of these had been reported to the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.
