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Kevin:
There is no link to an actual story. No names, no state, no lawyers, no nothing. Just a blog posting that is unsourced.
While there are surely some dumb cases that are brought, there are also urban legends.
I agree with the previous poster –
FWIW, assuming the usual distortions apply here, permanent injury is alleged, and any normal activity
lost as a result might be included, it would not have been the primary basis of the lawsuit.
(Any loss of normal function and or pleasure heretofore available to this patient lost as a result of malpractice would be an element of damages. Oral sex would be in a list of compromised activities.)
First the plaintiff would have to prove several other elements of his/her case, including that failure to identify and remove the bone caused the patient pain and injury, and that failure to find it sooner was the result of error that rose to the level of malpractice.
And, this case notwithstanding ( and who knows if there ever was such a case) I would say it would open one up to malpractice to rely strictly on an oral representation by a radiologist as to his findings, because of the high potential for miscommunication or misinterpretation of ambiguities…. It would seem that if the radiologist s(assuming he exists) written report detailing his interpretation included the notes about osteophyte, then there would be little reason to doubt that he relayed this to the treating physician… and that the physician misunderstood him.
An if the radiologist is the soul selling liar as related in the anecdote, it occurs to me that the history of acute onset of symptoms would have colored the reading of the CT…was the radiologist provided a useful history? If he was not, whose fault is that… the patient’s, I presume. That dirty, dirty, patients.
I
Isn’t oral sex illegal in several states?
Playing devils advocate here: why would this case be classified as “ridiculous”? Would the story be considered legitimate if she wasn’t able to have intercourse instead?
There are myriads of women that for some reason or another simply cannot have intercourse. Would that make these encounters any less intimate? I would imagine that her partner(s) would beg to differ.
Imagine the plaintiff on the stand being being interrogated by the defense attorney “so,this was not the first time a bone has been lodged in your throat, is it Ms. XXX?, No? and just how many bones HAVE been lodged in your throat Ms. XXX?
Actually I posted this story. I heard it first hand from a physician (who works with me) who was a partner with the doctor that was sued. He knew the details as they unfolded. Unless he was lying through his teeth to me, it is how it happened.
Actually I posted this story. I heard it first hand from a physician (who works with me) who was a partner with the doctor that was sued. He knew the details as they unfolded.
OK, that’s better. Now I can say I heard it first hand from an anonymous blogger who got it third hand from the partner of someone else.
Thanks for clearing that up.
The actions of lawyers in class action cases, asbestos, tobacco, etc., are scary enough.
ERP, that’s a pretty classic “friend of a friend” attribution…exactly what you’d expect from an urban legend.
What Eric is a little too polite to say outright is that the only thing fishy here is this story. It’s clearly written by somebody who doesn’t understand how actual lawsuits work.
This will probably only encourage you to fix the details to make your whopper more plausible, but here are some of the howlers: A malpractice suit that goes from filing to trial in six months. A med-mal attorney agreeing to take a case with no economic damages, no tangible harm and unsympathetic facts. A judge giving a jury a blatantly incorrect aside. Jurors who were chosen jointly by both sides suddenly turning pro-plaintiff because the judge said so. A $60,000 case that would get to trial. The defense failing to appeal or ask for a mistrial–much less settling–after a judge made a remark that guarantees an overturned verdict.
It appears that this ER doc is a repeat offender on spreading stories. Check out the comments here:
Medical Malpractice, Oral Sex and Urban Legends
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