Law Firm Resources & News

We all worry about the rampant infections in hospitals. The concern is heightened when surgery is involved. A common surgery with today’s aging population is the elective total hip arthroplasty – or hip replacement surgery. Should patients undergoing elective hip surgery be given antibiotics before surgery? A recent study indicates the answer is “no.” According…

A former St. Louis nursing home executive will spend two months in prison and two months in a halfway house for his part in a Medicaid and Medicare fraud scheme. Charles B. Kaiser III, former president of American Healthcare Management, pleaded guilty in January to a misdemeanor charge of making false statements. He was recently…

Sadly…you read it correctly! A former aide at the Rome Memorial Hospital Residential Health Care Facility, who was convicted last month of raping and sexually assaulting a 90-year-old resident of the nursing home, has been sentenced to over 30 years in prison. The aide was an employee at Rome Memorial Hospital in Rome, New York…

We have previously written about bedsores or decubitus ulcers or pressure sores – different terms referring to the same medical condition. Decubitus ulcers arise when a person is in a sitting or lying position for an extended period of time without shifting his or her weight. The continuous pressure against the skin causes a decreased…

Pressure ulcer / bed sore / decubitus ulcer – all names for the same painful and life threatening “injury.” Why do I hesitate to call them injuries, because their cause is so unique. When pressure is placed on the skin, in a non active person for long enough, the lack of circulation will cause the…

A Johns Hopkins University study of adult patients admitted to its hospital showed that patients who resided in nursing homes at any time within the last six months were far more likely than other adult patients to carry or be infected with a drug-resistant superbug. The study, conducted over a four-month period in 2006, was…

Please allow me to post this short article on a topic outside of our norm. I am a graduate of Virginia Tech, grew up in Blacksburg, and have parents living about 1 mile from the campus. One of my brothers graduated from the university as did my father. My great-grandfather graduated from the university before…

I am by definition, a “trial lawyer.”… but I really should be called a “settlement lawyer” or “mediation lawyer.” The reason being, very few clients want to take their case to trial. And I can’t blame them – stress, nervousness, it can be overwhelming. Well, today I read about a client who agreed to settle,…

It would be a lie for me to write that I am thinking about legal medical issues right now – my thoughts, and prayers, as well as the thoughts and prayers of my entire office, are in Blacksburg. God bless you Hokies, wherever you are!

Drugs are always in the news! There is Vioxx, and Celebrex, and the hormone-replacement drug Prempro, and the birth-control patch Ortho Evra and on and on and on. In the last few days the following articles have appeared in the media: o FDA’s Position on New Drugs May Hurt Merck’s Arcoxia Bid o Big Pharma’s…

In this article on MSNBC, a Canadian woman is suing her doctor, who told her she had cancer and administered six months of chemo therapy before she discovered from another doctor that she did not have cancer at all! The woman lost her hair, shed 60 pounds, and became anemic as well as contracting a…

In 1972, Medicare expanded its benefits to include disabled individuals. Unfortunately, while expanding their services, Medicare instituted a waiting period designed to limit costs and make certain that only people with severe and long lasting disabilities would qualify. Many groups have worked to eliminate the unfair waiting period, without success. The only two exceptions are…