Blog Posts in December, 2013

Teenage girl dies after routine surgery

New Jersey parents may have heard that what was supposed to be a simple surgery with a short recovery time ended in the death of a teenage girl. After the girl had a tonsillectomy on Dec. 9 at the Children's Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, California, the girl awoke and spoke to her mother. Soon afterwards, she began bleeding from her nose and mouth and suffered a cardiac arrest. She was ...

Surgical robots recalled for faulty instrument arms

An advanced new surgical robot known as the da Vinci system is being investigated by the Food and Drug Administration after the company that produces it issued an "urgent medical recall." Intuitive Surgical Inc., the manufacturer of the device, claims that friction in the surgical arms can cause the robot to balk or stall at key moments in surgery. More than a million surgeries and medical ...

Japanese man switched at birth awarded $371,000

Many New Jersey parents or parents-to-be have heard rumors of hospitals that have accidentally switched newborns at birth. One man in Japan was shocked when he learned that this had happened to him. According to the report, a hospital staff member accidentally switched the two infants after washing them. The man, who had been born to wealthy parents, was given to a woman who came from a poorer ...

Better medical error reporting for the New Jersey area

Physicians' error reporting has always been a subject fraught with secrecy in New Jersey and around the country. Doctors do try to protect each other, but often not for the reasons patients and the public think. Often, the threat of medical malpractice keeps a doctor from reporting his own mistakes unless the patient is sure to find out. A survey said that more than 50 percent of surgeons and ...