Federal Tort Claims Act
When a patient is afflicted with a serious kidney disease, he or she often undergoes dialysis. During this procedure, the dialysis machine acts as an artificial kidney, and the procedure carries with it the inherent possibility of danger to the patient. Therefore, it is both a life-saving and a life-threatening procedure. It is frequently performed at private, for-profit dialysis centers. Some studies indicate that dialysis patients who have the procedure performed at a private, for-profit center face a statistically significant higher risk of death than those treated at a non-profit center.
Placebo Therapy and Malpractice
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.
You wake up in the morning not feeling well, you make a quick phone call to your doctor and describe your symptoms to the staff person who answered the telephone, and within an hour, you have a prescription for antibiotics in your hand. The increased use of antibiotics in this country has been labeled "promiscuous," and it is criticized by many conscientious physicians.
