Newsletters

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) is a federal law enacted in 1986 to stop the practice of "patient dumping," or turning patients away from emergency rooms based on their lack of ability to pay. Under EMTALA, any hospital that has an emergency room and that receives federal funding must provide any individual coming to its premises with a medical screening examination to determine if an emergency condition or active pregnancy labor exists. If so, the hospital is required to stabilize the patient's condition prior to transferring the patient to another facility, subject to a few narrowly defined exemptions. The transfer must be appropriate and meet certain conditions.

Wrong Site Surgery

When a surgeon operates on the wrong limb, the patient often sustains a devastating injury. Wrong site surgery occurs not only on the wrong limb or organ but on the wrong patient. This error results from numerous breakdowns in the hospital's system, including poor preoperative planning, a lack of institutional controls, the failure of the surgeon to exercise due care, or poor communication between the surgeon and the patient.

Malpractice in Female Sterilization

In order to permanently prevent a woman from becoming pregnant, a physician may perform one of a number of sterilization procedures. Sterilization may be accomplished through the removal of the uterus, both ovaries, both fallopian tubes, or a closure of the fallopian tubes. A tubal closure is currently the most common procedure when the sole purpose of the procedure is to prevent pregnancy.

Malpractice Liability of Sports Medical Care Providers

Children and young adults are playing a large variety of sports in ever-increasing numbers. As the number of participants increases, so does the occurrence of sports-related injuries and deaths resulting in more medical malpractice actions against team physicians and sports trainers.

Emergency Room Malpractice

When an emergency happens, we depend upon the emergency room staff for proper care. No matter what the symptoms, we expect the treating physicians and nurses to be able to accurately diagnose and take care of our complaint. However, studies indicate that over half of the deaths from medical malpractice related injuries in a single year result from emergency room errors.