Topic: malpractice

The Dentist Just Got More Terrifying: Tulsa Dental Clinic Possibly Spread Hepatitis, HIV To Patients

Confession time: I hate the dentist. Yes, I’m one of those people. I put off appointments and change the subject whenever my husband reminds me that it’s been a year since my last check-up. I hate having someone else’s hands in my mouth. I hate the guilt over whether or not I remember to floss twice a day. (I didn’t.) And now, thanks to this horror story from Tulsa, I have a whole new excuse for putting off my next cleaning. More »

Acupuncturist Deliberately Infects 16 People With HIV

Remember how we discussed the new scientific evidence of acupuncture’s stress-relieving effects and why they occur? I began to really think about trying it out, despite the ageda it may give me. Then, I saw this terrible news story regarding a vile acupuncturist who infected his patients with HIV. On purpose. Sixteen times. More »

Catholic Hospital Believes Life Begins At Conception … Except In Cases Of Malpractice

No matter on which side of the personhood issue you fall, Catholic Health Initiatives — the nonprofit behind Colorado’s St. Thomas More Hospital along with about 170 other facilities across the country — does not come across well in this situation. The Catholic hospital chain claims to “nurture the healing ministry of the Church,” guided by “fidelity to the Gospel” and adherence to the ethical and religious directives of the Catholic Church and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. But in a malpractice lawsuit involving the death of a pregnant woman carrying twins, CHI’s defense team argues against considering the fetuses as a legal people. More »

Prosecutors OK With Slap On The Wrist For Conrad Murray, But It’s Not Right

Yesterday, the judge handed Dr. Conrad Murray a maximum four-year sentence for his role in the death of Michael Jackson. And while the prosecutors for the high-profile case are OK with this term (knowing that Murray’s actual time served is likely to be significantly less), it’s simply not right. More »

Oprah’s Sweat Lodge Guru Given A Ridiculously Short Prison Sentence

James Arthur Ray, the “guru” once promoted by Oprah alongside The Secret, just got two years in prison for hosting a sweat lodge vision quest in 2009 that caused the death of three people and hospitalization of dozens more. He was technically given three two-year sentences for reckless endangerment, but they’ll be served concurrently, which when you recount the details of what happened at his “Sun Warrior Retreat” in Sedona, Arizona, seems like a ridiculously light punishment. More »

Real Talk: How Hard Is It To Get And Abuse Prescription Drugs?

It seems like it should be difficult to get and abuse prescription drugs, but judging by some of this month’s top stories—Dr. Conrad Murray‘s guilty verdict in the Michael Jackson death trials; Kim Richards‘ recent revelation that her prescriptions are making her seem drunk; new studies documenting the epidemic of death by prescription painkiller overdose—it’s not. For all the debate over legalization of pot, we seem to have bigger fish to fry: Legal, doctor-prescribed drugs. More »

Kim Richards Isn’t Drunk; She’s On A Dangerous Cocktail Of Prescription Drugs

Kim Richards‘ bizzare behavior, slurred speech, half-closed eyes, and other symptoms that would seem to indicate that she’s drunk are apparently not due to alcohol; they’re due to a dangerous combination of prescription drugs, according to Dr. Paul Nassif. Like Michael Jackson, whose recent death trial verdict has put prescription drug overdose in the spotlight, it appears that Richards has likely accumulated her collection of pills to formulate a potentially risky prescription med cocktail. More »

Why Doctors Should Be Allowed Mistakes (Even If They Include Claiming That Sperm Makes Women Happy)

As an editor for a website that focuses on controversial health topics and medically-relevant reports, I’m painfully aware of how just a simple turn of phrase can set off a timebomb of angry comments and Facebook “unlikes.” And now, so is prominent surgeon Lazar Greenfield, who just resigned his post as president-elect of the American College of Surgeons after his own editorial blunder: claiming that sperm improved the mood of women. Should he be ousted for making a bum medical claim? Should his botched editorial unravel decades of earnest work as a surgeon? According to many, his claims were outlandish, but his editorial wasn’t careless, so I can’t help but think that we should all loosen up and allow doctors, like ourselves, to make mistakes. More »