Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Posted in Medical Malpractice

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OxyContin_branded_oxycodone_10mg_OC_sideA Staten Island doctor committed gross medical malpractice by illegally prescribing massive quantities of oxicodone pills and asking some of his patients for sexual favors in return. 65 year old Joseph Santiamo, a geriatric care physician whose New York State License was recently suspended, pleaded guilty in front of New Jersey US District Judge Michael A. Shipp to illegally prescribing more than 65,000 pills to 7 patients and to solicit sex in exchange for prescriptions from most of them. Two patients were prescribed a total of 14,000 pills and another one was prescribed 9,000 pills.

“Even more egregiously, (he) solicited sexual favors from certain patients who were struggling with substance abuse in exchange for writing them additional opioid prescriptions,” said New Jersey U.S. Attorney Craig Carpentito. “Instead of getting help from their doctor, they were drawn deeper into the cycle of drug abuse.”

Santiamo was arrested during a major law enforcement sweep in the North East during which 54 people were busted including 15 doctors. The doctor was “treating patients” who lived in New Jersey, Upstate New York, Pennsylvania and Florida. While the doctor was supposedly a geriatric specialist, his patients were all younger than 40 years old.  The doctor admitted that he solicited at least 5 of them for sexual favors. From January 1 2012 to May 3rd 2018, the “patients” would visit the doctor in his office and have sexual encounters with him in his office in exchange for oxycodone prescriptions. When he was asked by investigators how the sexual relationships started, the doctor replied “They had a need”.

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photo__2573607_christopher_conadio_pp-1Our partner, Christopher Donadio will be one of three Distinguished Panel Members at the “How to Effectively use a Neurosurgeon in the Courtroom” CLE program organized by The New York City Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) & The Defense Association of New York tomorrow from 5:00pm to 7:00 pm EST via ZOOM.

Christopher will speak about the Plaintiff’s Perspective while the second panel member, Jenine Gerrard, a defense attorney with Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP will speak about the Defense Perspective. The other member of the panel is Dr. Christopher Allyn Lycette, a Board Certified Neurosurgeon. The program will be moderated by Sean Dugan, an attorney with Martin Clearwater & Bell LLP.

Suitable for both  experienced and newly admitted attorneys, the panel fulfills 2 CLE skills credits. It is not too late to subscribe for this 2-hour Zoom Program that will start tomorrow, Tuesday November 12 at 5:00pm. Click here to subscribe or download the PDF

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Best Law Firms - Standard BadgeFor the 11th consecutive year, our New York Personal Injury Law Firm was named a Best Law Firm 2021 by U.S. News – Best Lawyers®. The firm was also named

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UW_surgery_and_residentsMore than 40 million Americans are undergoing surgery every year. An estimated 35.8 million of them will immediately return home after having their surgery performed in a freestanding ambulatory surgery center or in a hospital-based outpatient setting. Another 7 million will be required to stay at the hospital after their surgery. While most patients fully recover from their surgery without problems some of them will suffer from surgical complications or errors. It is estimated that around 14% of surgical patients encounter at least one adverse event.

In a recent study, the ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices took a close look at surgical malpractice and analyzed 2,400 surgical adverse events that were recently reported to them. Among these 2,400 reported surgical malpractice events, researchers found that 1,561 of them were relevant. They found that 478 of them (31%) were complications related to the surgery, 460 (29%) of them were adverse events related to patient and operating room readiness,  377 (24%) were retained surgical items, 102 (6.5%) were contaminations, 80 (5.1%) were adverse events caused by equipment failure and 64 (4.1) were wrong surgeries.

To reduce these adverse events, the ECRI recommended the following strategies:

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nursing home abuseVictims of nursing home abuse , hospital neglect or medical malpractice in New York State not related to Covid-19 can legally hold healthcare professionals responsible for their negligence again.

Yesterday, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a law that rolls back the legal immunity that nursing homes and hospitals were granted during the coronavirus crisis

Since yesterday these institutions can again be held liable in criminal prosecutions and lawsuits.

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Drive_Thru_DrugsDispensing errors occur when a pharmacy commits a medication error and patients receive a different drug, a different dosage or a different drug quantity than their doctor prescribed. Sometimes when the doctor prescribed several medications, the pharmacy might also miss one. While most patients realize when the pharmacy did not give them the proper medication, some don’t. Medication errors by pharmacies can result in more harm to a patients and even death in some cases.

As doctors, pharmacies and patients are adapting to new safety guidelines related to Covid-19, pharmacies should also create new protocols to prevent the risk of medication errors.

The increase in phone prescriptions as well as not delivering the medication at the counter but offering curbside pick-up, drive-through window, home delivery, or mailing the medication can lead to an increase in medication errors if the pharmacy doesn’t take extra safety steps to prevent them.

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New York Personal Injury Attorney Marijo AdimeyIn a 2nd Department decision decided June 24, 2020, (see decision here), the Court reversed a trial court’s reduction of a $2.5 million jury verdict in a medical malpractice action involving a perforated intestine during an upper endoscopy.  When conservative treatment failed, Mrs. Garzon required an exploratory laparotomy to resect a perforated diverticulum, as well as a feeding jejunostomy, during a nine-day hospital stay.  Due to presence of intra-abdominal scarring and adhesions from the surgery, Ms. Garzon is at an increased risk of developing a bowel obstruction in the future.

At the trial, our partner NY Medical Malpractice Attorney Marijo C. Adimey obtained a unanimous verdict of $2,500,000 on behalf of her client, Elsa Garzon, from a Queens County jury.  The verdict awarded Mrs. Garzon $1,500,000 for past pain and suffering and $1,000,000 for future pain and suffering (see our previous post for full case details).

Defendant filed a post-trial motion pursuant to CPLR 4404(a) to set aside the jury verdict as excessive and against the weight of the evidence.   In granting defendant’s motion, the trial court reduced the award for past pain and suffering to $550,000 and reduced the future pain and suffering award to $100,000. The court held that the award for future pain and suffering was speculative and against the weight of the evidence.

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pregnant woman700 women die from medical complications related to child birth on average every year in the US. 60% of these fatalities are preventable. Maternal health was ranked the number two patient safety concern in the Top 10 Patient Safety Concern 2020 recently released by the ECRI Institute.
The CDC recently released alarming data related to the maternal mortality rate in the US. Non-Hispanic black women are 3 to 4 times more at risk of dying from child birth complications than non-Hispanic white women.  The rate of mortality also increases as women giving birth get older. Women who get pregnant after 40 year old are 7.7 times more at risk of dying from child birth complications than women under 25.

The lack of standardized care is a significant contribution factor in maternal mortality

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doctor-and-x-rayMissed and delayed diagnoses are common medical errors that can lead to serious injury and death. This morning the Daily Mail wrote about an 11 year old boy who died from severe bowel obstruction after a doctor misdiagnosed him with constipation and sent him back home. The doctor neglected to send him for an X-ray despite symptoms consistent with bowel obstruction.
Failure to diagnose or delay to diagnose a medical condition occur so often that the ECRI institute ranked this type of medical malpractice its number one concern out of its Top 10 Patients Safety Concern in 2020.

In the US it is estimated that 12 million adults or 1 out of 20 patients are misdiagnosed every year

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Jeff-Bloom2Congratulations to our partner Jeffrey Bloom for being listed as the 19th most politically powerful lawyer in New York in the 2020 Law Power 100. Jeffrey serves as the Co-Chair of the Medical Malpractice Committee and LAWPAC of New York (the Trial Lawyers’ political action committee) for the New York State Trial Lawyers Association.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo described the trial lawyers as “the single most powerful political force in Albany”.

Jeff has been with our firm since he graduated from law school in 1979.  He is recognized as one of the best personal injury and medical malpractice attorneys in New York and has helped his clients successfully achieve numerous multi-million dollar recoveries.  Among his notable cases, he served as lead counsel representing the Estate of Joan Rivers in a medical malpractice action arising from her death following surgery at an ambulatory surgical center. Jeff also specializes in cases of  cancer patients  who have been misdiagnosed. He was instrumental in the 2018 enactment of“Lavern’s Law,” which, for the first time in New York, mandated that the statute of limitations in cases on behalf of cancer patients and their families begins to run when the patient reasonably discovers that he/she has been the victim of malpractice.

A 2020 Law Power 100 Reception will take place tomorrow at The Ainsworth Chelsea in Manhattan.

 

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