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Areas of Practice
Medical Malpractice
Doctors
We have had numerous cases in litigation experience involving
medical malpractice against surgeons and treating doctors and
hospitals throughout the State of California.
Medical Malpractice actions are based on the breach of the defendant
medical practitioner's professional duty to the patient to perform
his or her duties with the skill required of members of the
profession. The established standard of care in California for
physicians and surgeons requires that they emphasize that degree of
skill, knowledge, and care ordinarily possessed and exercised by
other members of the profession acting under similar conditions and
circumstances. This same degree of care is required of the
practitioner whether performing diagnosis or treatment.
The standard of care governing medical specialists requires the
exercise of professional conduct normally exhibited by specialists
in the same or similar locality under like circumstances.
A physician has a duty of reasonable disclosure to his patient of
the available choices with respect to proposed therapy and of the
dangers inherently and potentially involved in each. The choice
regarding whether or not to undergo the recommended treatment must
be made by the patient after receiving the information. Patients
must be apprised not only of the risk inherent in the procedure in
question but also of the risk of a decision not to undergo the
treatment or procedure.
Dentist
We have had numerous cases in litigation involving dental
malpractice.
A dentist is required to have and to use the degree of learning and
skill which is ordinarily possessed by dentists of good professional
reputation in the community. A dental specialist, such as a
periodontist is liable for the failure to perform as other
specialists within the discipline would under like circumstances.
A dentist has a duty to timely refer his patient to a dental
specialist, if under the same circumstances, a reasonably careful
and skillful general practitioner of dentistry would have done so.
Dentists have been found liable for the failure to exercise due care
in various aspects of treatment. For example, Dentists have found to
be negligent for permitting a tooth to fall into the patient's lung
or thoracic cavity, for breaking a hypodermic needle inside the
patient's jaw, for failing to sterilize a needle prior to injection,
resulting in infection, and for making an injection into an infected
area, thereby exacerbating the condition.
With regard to dental x-rays, dentists may be liable for the
negligent taking of x-rays which burn or otherwise over expose the
patient. A dentist may also be liable for the negligent operation of
x-ray equipment by his or her nurse.
Hospitals
We have had numerous cases in litigation against hospitals in the
State of California for injuries sustained by clients. We have also
represented heirs against hospitals with regard to the wrongful
death of their loved ones.
A hospital's duty towards its patient is to provide a safe
environment in which diagnosis, treatment, and recovery can be
carried out. The extent of its duty is to provide the appropriate
care to a patient that his or her condition requires. The extent and
character of the care owed is measured in relation to the condition
of each individual patient. The scope of the duty is also determined
in relation to the skill, care, and diligence employed by hospitals
generally in the community.
A hospital owes a duty to the patient to select and review the
competency of its staff physicians carefully to insure the adequacy
of care rendered to patients at its facility. A hospital may be
liable for its failure to screen out incompetent doctors.
A hospital may be held liable for the negligent of conduct of staff
persons. A hospital may also be liable for the negligent conduct of
non-employees who act as hospital agents, when, for example, the
hospital intentionally or carelessly induces a patient to believe
the practitioner is an employee.
Other Health Care Providers
We have had numerous cases against health care providers regarding
the area of medical malpractice.
Chiropractors
A chiropractor is required by law to use the same degree of care,
diligence and skill in the treatment of his or her patients as is
possessed and used by prudent, skillful and careful practitioners of
the same school practicing in the same community. Because of the
standard of care applicable to chiropractors is established in
reference to its own system, a chiropractor is not required to
employ the same methods recognized and approved by practitioners of
medicine or surgery.
Nurses
Nurses may be held liable for their own negligence, and a hospital
as a nurses employer, can be held liable under the doctrine of
employer liability. In a malpractice action, the adequacy of a
nurses performance is based on a professional standard, and tested
with reference to the performance of other nurses. A nurse has a
duty to employ that degree of skill and learning and treating a
patient which is customarily applied by other trained and skilled
members of the nursing profession in treating and caring for the
sick similarly suffering in the same or similar locality.
A nurses duty includes the obligation to notify the physician of
important changes in the patients condition. The inaction of a nurse
in the presence of danger signals which an attentive nurse would
promptly report is negligent. Nurses may be negligent for failing to
provide sufficient attendance to helpless or disabled patients. A
nurse may also be liable for negligence for the incorrect
administration of injections.
Psychologists/Psychiatrists
A psychotherapist stands in a special relationship to the patient
and must, therefore, exercise that reasonable degree of skill,
knowledge, and care ordinarily possessed and exercised by members of
that professional specialty under similar circumstances.
One issue that arises for a therapist is his or her in liability to
others for the violent actions of a patient. Therapists have a duty
to predict or diagnose that a patient posses a danger to a third
person and to warn that person of the danger. Additionally, because
psychotherapists stand in a special relationship with persons under
their care, they must take measures to prevent the patient from
self-inflicted harm.
Nursing Homes / Elder Abuse
We have had numerous cases involving elder law. We have been
involved with Elder Abuse litigation in regard to health care
providers such as nursing homes, as well as elder abuse regarding
custodianship.
There are over 31 million Americans 65 years of age or older, and
this age group is one of the fastest growing segments of the
population. California has the largest number of elderly in the
United States, and the census bureau projects that California
elderly population will increase by 52% before 2010.
Although elderly clients may have any one of the legal problems
shared by the population at large, our law office specializes in the
cluster of issues that tend to arise as a consequence of aging. If
elders are frail or infirm, they may be vulnerable to financial or
physical abuse, or commercial exploitation.
The elderly in skilled nursing facilities are among the most
vulnerable members of our society and often have a particular need
for legal assistance. They are dependent on the skilled nursing
facility operator for their food, medicine and bed; for a roof over
their heads; for assistance with virtually every day activity.
It is unfortunately true that the potential for abuse in some
nursing facilities has too often become fully realized. The list of
abuses committed on nursing facility patients is long and exceeds
simple neglect. Some nursing facility patients are not helped to the
bathroom but are instead left neglected in bed for weeks or longer.
They are virtually starved to death, dehydrated, over medicated and
under medicated, and improperly restrained. Their infections are
over looked until emergent or fatal, all of this in an extensively
regulated facility designed and operated to give 24-hour continuous
nursing service.
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