ssnake

My father has recently been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer(worst) which is extremeley hard for me, and including the rest of my family....
my mother decided to file a lawsuit against the doctors because a month ago, a doctor told us nothing was wrong with him and said all he had was acid reflux...(we took it into our own hands to figure out what was really wrong... including going to another hospital)

we came to find out that President Bush passed some kind of law protecting doctors from being sued for things like this and i beleive it is unfair that my father could of been helped more had they known about his cancer a month earlier and we cant do anything about it....

what do you think about this and could anybody explain this law more in depth to me? thanks for listening

scout

I don't think the law regarding medical malpractice has been passed just yet. Regardless, your Congress passed the law and the Pres. just signed it into law.

flstf

I don't know you but I wish you and your family the best of luck in getting treatment for your father.

Filibuster defeats malpractice caps on lawsuits
The Senate endured another filibuster yesterday as Democrats blocked consideration of a bill to cap damages in medical malpractice lawsuits against doctors, drug makers and medical-device makers involved in obstetrical or gynecological care.

Under yesterday's bill, noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering would be capped at $250,000 in medical malpractice lawsuits involving obstetrical or gynecological care. Punitive damages would also be capped at $250,000 or twice the amount of economic damages, whichever is higher. The bill wouldn't institute any limit on economic damages.
Senate Democrats blocked a broader version of the bill last year that would have instituted similar caps for doctors across the board.

munchen

I'm sorry about your father.
Doctors should be held accountable for malpractise. If what the doctor is doing is universally accepted i think they should be protected. Doctors are extremely busy and have a ton of information that they have to continually soak up. They can't be experts at everything, sometimes the minimum is the best they can do. Diagnosing can also be a little hit or miss. If doctors were punished for everything they missed we would have no doctors left. Its unfortunate but I don't see much way around it.

__________________
"Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun" -Matt Groening

former newt

its a touchy situation. doctors need protection from frivolous lawsuits, but sometimes something that may seem frivolous is anything but. in the case of diagnosis, though, i don't know if that's something that i could support a case for lawsuit. as munchen said, diagnosis is sometimes hit or miss, which is why people get second and third opinions. that's not to prove that a doctor is incompetent, but merely to increase the chances of a missed diagnosis being caught later. i'm going to start med school in two years, and all i know is if/when i am approached as the second physician examining a patient, and find something that was missed before, i wouldn't necessarily feel the previous physician wasn't competent. sometimes circumstances may not point to the proper problem.

matthew330

I am sorry to hear about your father's diagnosis. Without knowing to many details, theres something about this story that doesn't seem right. First of all, if he had acid reflux, and this was a result of stage 4 esophogeal cancer, he would have had multiple symptoms prior to this. This type of cancer isn't necessarily fast moving. Second of all, even had your father been diagnosed a month ago, he very well to this day may not have been treated. Treatment planning alone takes months. Your dad didn't go from stage 2 to 4 in one month.

Stage 4 cancer is the most severe of a particular type, but not undefeatable. The difference between stage 4 pancreatic and stage 4 esophageal is a HUGE difference.
I didn't mean that as a diss, but like i said, something about your story doesn't seem right. Either you're mistaken on the details or, forgive me, your sue happy at a time when your energy should be concentrated on getting him better. Your all going to need it. Good luck.

tecoyah

If this TRULY is your fathers story...then please tell me so. Otherwise I will close this thread in 24 hours given no reply. I apologize if indeed I am incorrect. But, you are asking us to research a law which you obviously have as much access to as we do, in what would seem an attempt to create interest in a politcal agenda.

Please prove me wrong

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

RangerDick

RangerDick

My comments were not insulting........

Tecoyah.... Post my comments and the readers decide??????!!!????



Oh, can't do that!!!! Raider wouldn't dig it! Fuck it. If you want one POV just be straight with it.

RangerDick

The Cure ------


Figurehead---

Matt, U da man brutha. Tecoyah loves me

RangerDick

Never be a pussy kid!!!!



In the hanging garden........\\

jump out out of tiime tecoyah.....as the animals die

tecoyah

The above Member will hopefully return from vacation with a more civil attitude
Obviously behind the scenes communication failed.

We shall see in 3 days

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

shakran

I will admit that Tecoyah's suspicioins are justified as to the truth of the original poster - - -after all it appeared what, 5 hours after the other, now closed and probably fake thread? However, running a google search on key phrases in this post, I was unable to find any duplicates anywhere. . . If this guy WERE a troll trying to stir up political feelings, I think he'd have taken the same tactic as our other friend did and spammed every message board he could find. The fact that he didn't makes me more inclined to believe him.

drakers

No, I believe no law has been passed or should be passed. This law that conservatives are trying to pull through the house and senate is bullshate, it is just trying to protect doctors that really screwed up. Do we really want those doctors working, I don't want any doctor that prevented someone from living or accidentally killed them to be practicing medicine (no matter what their intentions were). We put ourselves in doctors hands because we believe they can help make us feel better, but some people just shouldn't be allowed to do that anymore.

__________________
Friends don't shake hands, friends 'gotta HUG!

tecoyah

And thus the thread is still open....as I also failed to find a correlation between the two.
Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

ssnake

people ....im just a 16 year old trying to see my peers thoughts about me and my familys problems.... and no my parents are not sue happy they just feel that misdiagnosing my father with acid reflux instead of cancer is a very big mistake( colon for those of you who are asking) and sorry i didint mention hes had cancer 5 years beforehand.....
right now it has spreaded from his colon to his liver, pancreas and his lungs...

i was just asking a question because im worryed about my father and if the worst happens i dont know how we are going to pay for the house we moved into recently in florida...you know im just scared about what could happen and want to know more...

thanks for the info

and please... if you dont have anything nice to say dont say anything at all.. thats not cool

Ilow

i don't know any more about the status of the current legislation than anyone else here, however it seems that i do have some agreement with the Republican bill. [gasp]
My good friend who is a physician pays a fortune in various insurances because of the potential that he will be sued (frivolously or otherwise) so consequently he must pass the un-savings on to his consumers (patients). He is especially concerned with the state of the rates to be an ob/gyn. These insurance rates are so astromomical that another friend of mine is considering leaving the ob/gyn trade and doing GP. What is happening is that we are now driving good doctors away from where we need them, which is unfortunate.
Naturally i believe that if gross negligence is involved (i.e. going to the ATM during surgery) there should be severe penalties, but as advanced as modern medicine is there is still an element of art to the science and the possibility of mistakes remains. IMHO there are far too many ambulance chasing lawyers out there willing to sue any and everyone everytime something unfortunate happens regardless of it was actually preventable. I really think that this is often the case because the insurance companies are quick to settle and both the lawyer and the party filing suit are happy because they got a decent chunk of change for relatively little effort. Does this hurt people who have legitimate claims? Probably, but the solution is to find a way to reduce frivolous or unwarranted lawsuits. Too many people have a loved one pass away and then in their grief want someone to blame, and there are too many lawyers who are eager to take their case. Again, this is MHO, but still.
Regarding this post (setting aside the fact that i thought that you had to be 18 to be on the TFP at all) I do feel for the poster, if in fact the situation is authentic, but i also have some reservations about how someone who has had cancer previously could graduate to stage 4 metastatic cancer that is mis-diagnosed as acid reflux. That's just my suspicious nature, I'm sure.

__________________
"Religion is the one area of our discourse in which it is considered noble to pretend to be certain about things no human being could possibly be certain about"
--Sam Harris

Justsomeguy

Doctors get sued for so much bull shit already. There definitely are times when they should be sued but in most cases, it's just sickening. For example, my grandmother's kidney was actually cut in a normally routine operation. She never had problems with her kidneys before. Since, she has suffered greatly and will die from it inevidibly. In events such as this, yes, sue and sue big. However, even in my personal experiences, I've seen patients sue for negligence even when they failed to follow doctor's orders. Patients have won in these situations.

Unfortunately, morals really get in the way when talking about these issues. In my opinion, it's just like people suing merck for their probs associated with vioxx(which they SHOULD NOT HAVE recalled) in that many lawyers and politicians exploit the system. You can't fault them for it, but you don't have to admire their shitty ethics.

My best advice, never be too trusting of anyone and always consider a second opinion.

jorgelito

It sounds like the problem is really, back with the insurance companies, not the doctors or patients.

So many of the problems with healthcare seem to lay with the insurance companies.

sob

Just to try to get some facts straight, the law being considered (if it has passed, I haven't seen it) is to cap pain and suffering payments at $250k. That has worked well in California.

The amount doesn't much matter to a health care professional, because in almost all cases, it's going to be the insurance company that pays it.

However, large judgements are why OB-GYNs pay $120k a year in insurance premiums. I heard, but can not verify, that some neurosurgeons pay $265k. Also, it's by no means a new development that many OBs have decided to be only GYNs.

Awhile back, Kutulu was upset at what it cost for his wife to have a baby. The above is the reason.

sob

I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse, but the cancer most definitely did not spread from his colon to liver, pancreas, and lungs in a month.

That extra 30 days didn't make any difference.

sob

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It would seem that some rules are enforced, and others are not.