Some Shocking Facts About Medical Malpractice

Bob Carroll

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The Mininno Law Office must have someone old enough to remember the television series, Dragnet. A recent article on the firm website provides the facts, just the facts about medical malpractice. Six of the facts are featured below.

23 Facts About Medical Malpractice

Doctors and politicians like to blame attorneys for the high cost of malpractice insurance but the truth is that doctors make severe errors that hurt or kill thousands of patients each year. Here are the facts.

*98,000 deaths each year are due to medical errors. - Institute of Health, National Academy of Sciences (1999)
*Deaths by medical errors each year exceeded the number of deaths due to motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer and AIDS. - Institute of Health, National Academy of Sciences (1999)
*More than 10% of common surgical procedures are unnecessary or inappropriate. - USA Today(7/24/02)
*About 2.1 million patients each year, or 6% will contract a hospital-acquired infection. - Chicago Tribune (7/21/02)
*The deaths of 2,610 infants in the year 2000 were linked to preventable hospital-acquired infections. - Chicago Tribune (7/22/02)
*Diagnosis of breast cancer was delayed in 9% of patients in a recent study because physicians wrongly ascribed a benign status to a palpable mass. - Archives of Internal Medicine (6/24/02)

Medical errors in Florida must be at their highest level judging by the number of potential medical malpractice matters reviewed by our firm this year. Unfortunately, many of the clearest instances of poor quality care (breaches of the accepted standard of care) occur in the treatment of the elderly.