We get calls every day from patients who feel they have been wronged by their doctors. Many times these wrongs are perceived slights, failure to communicate, or a failure to ensure the patient understands his or her health situation.

In some circumstances, medical negligence could have been avoided with a stronger physician-patient relationship. It is our hope that patients and physicians will read and apply the following tips. If our firm never received another medical malpractice case because a physician never committed negligence again, that would be okay with us!

The long-awaited decision in Harrison v Munson Medical Center was issued yesterday.  To briefly recap, the patient sued Munson, among others, after she was burned with a Bovie device during surgery.  Munson presented a defense based on habit, routine, and practice evidence (i.e., what health care practitioners usually do), claiming no one involved had any memory of what happened.  The defense then crafted a theory that the  Bovie had been properly holstered, but somehow became unholstered and made its way to the patient’s arm.

Twice as many people in Michigan die from drug overdoses than from car accidents. Let the gravity of that statistic sink in for a moment. Twice as many. And even more startling –about 80% of heroin users previously misused prescription opioids. So it is not surprising to find that Michigan has the tenth highest per capita opioid prescription rate and one of the highest rates of accidental drug overdose in the country! What is being done to address this epidemic?