(January 10, 2017 at 5:41 pm)ignoramus Wrote: Do you drive a beemer or Audi?

Good stuff man ...you done good.

Lolz - used 2009 Chevy Cobalt.

Go ahead, ask me how many figures of student loan debt I have.  Ask me how many figures of student loan debt.  I'll give you a hint: it's the smallest number that can be written as the sum of two positive rational cubes that aren't integers.

Quote:Organizationally, I believe a large amount of hospital policy is dictated by the legal department.

Funny, I always thought that hospital policies were developed by the Vice President of Pissing Patients Off.

(January 10, 2017 at 6:17 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:Organizationally, I believe a large amount of hospital policy is dictated by the legal department.

Funny, I always thought that hospital policies were developed by the Vice President of Pissing Patients Off.

Some are.

Yeah, I don't know why people think all lawyers are rich. Law school costs a shitload of money.

Joe: Is there a defense you undertook that you wish you hadn't? Is there a defense you declined that you wish you hadn't?

Boru

I want to sue someone for reasons. Do I have a case?

(January 10, 2017 at 6:36 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: I want to sue someone for reasons.   Do I have a case?

I'm pretty sure you do. The legal maxim that applies to your situation is (if I remember correctly): 'You can sue anyone for anything.

Boru

(January 10, 2017 at 6:33 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Joe: Is there a defense you undertook that you wish you hadn't? Is there a defense you declined that you wish you hadn't?

Boru

To be honest, I don't really have a personal answer for this, just because I haven't been doing it long enough. In general, a case usually lasts, from filing to trial, 2 to 4 years, with filing usually occurring 1 to 2 years after the injury; I've only been doing this for about four months now. More to the point, I guess, is that I probably won't be making "strategy-level" decisions for a few years. Right now, my job is a lot of summarizing records and interviewing people and doing the grunt work; it's my boss's boss's job to go to trial.

On a general level, there are a number of things that come up that are uncomfortable. The big one, I think, is contributory negligence - when you have to say "part of this is the patient's (or someone related to the patient's) fault." I mean, one can easily imagine a case where you have to argue, before a jury, "the plaintiff should've taken his son to the hospital on Thursday; by the time he got him there on Friday, it was too late to save him, and that's not our fault." Not a fun position to take, to tell a grieving parent, but a position I may have to take some day to protect my clients' interests. There are others that come up; I'll post them if I think about them.

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So, TL;DR: I'm an associate (as opposed to a partner) so I don't get to decide what I do. If someone asked me to do something I found odious, I'd say no. If someone asked me to do something distasteful but necessary, well, that's part of my job, I suppose.

Are you involved in civil and criminal cases?

Are/will you be involved in cases of medical product liability?

Have there been cases where the accused malpractice/negligence has been against hospital policy vs individual actions? 

How many do you see that are medical misadventure vs malpractice?

(January 10, 2017 at 8:30 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: Are you involved in civil and criminal cases?

Just civil. I've never wanted to do anything criminal. My firm is all civil, as far as I know; I think if the hospitals had anything criminal they would get different lawyers who specialize in that.

Quote:Are/will you be involved in cases of medical product liability?

Probably not, which is a shame, because I think that would be very interesting. Later in my career I could get more of an opportunity to choose what I do, and something like this would be intriguing to me.

Quote:Have there been cases where the accused malpractice/negligence has been against hospital policy vs individual actions?

I haven't encountered any. You occasionally get cases of doctors or nurses behaving badly (usually being jerks to patients or not following rules repeatedly) and then when they get fired they sue.

Or, do you mean, someone sues and doesn't say "your doctor screwed up" but instead says "your policy is negligent"? That happens a lot; it's a special kind of case called corporate negligence. There are a few ways it can work, but it often comes down to "you didn't have a policy in place to prevent X" or "your policy about X was vague enough that someone could follow it but still not ensure patient safety." The standards to bring that case are tricky; basically, you need to show not only that the policy was bad but that the hospital knew or should have known it was bad.

Quote:How many do you see that are medical misadventure vs malpractice?

Hmm... I'm not really familiar with this terminology (misadventure). It's not really used in the USA. Elaboration plz?