Patient Privacy Category Archives — Page 2 of 7 — DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog Published by Washington, D.C. Personal Injury Lawyers

May 18, 2021

Investigators rip University of Michigan for failing to halt decades of sexual abuse of young men

Big Blue has hundreds of reasons to be red-faced about a 240-page, independent inquiry that offers disturbing, black-and-white evidence that ought to be heeded by higher educational institutions nationwide: Young men can be sexually preyed upon by doctors, too.

The University of Michigan, in fact, ignored four decades of exploitative and abusive conduct by Robert Anderson, a team doctor, member of the medical school faculty, and senior physician in the student health service, the investigators reported.

He performed hundreds of invasive, unnecessary, and outright perverse exams on UM students, most of them male. Many were athletes on the school’s nationally known teams or who disclosed to the doctor that they were gay.

April 23, 2021

Sexually transmitted infections spike for sixth year in a row, CDC reports

by Patrick A. Malone

While the coronavirus pandemic savaged the country, another infection spiked, too, with nasty consequences: The nation set new records in 2019 and likely in 2020 for cases of sexually transmitted diseases or infections, illnesses that once were on the brink of control.

As Raul Romaguera, acting director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of STD prevention, wrote of the troubling trend:

“Less than 20 years ago, gonorrhea rates in the U.S. were at historic lows, syphilis was close to elimination, and advances in chlamydia diagnostics made it easier to detect infections. That progress has been lost, due in part to challenges to our public health system.”

April 9, 2021

State license boards warn doctors of consequences for sexual misbehavior

by Patrick A. Malone

Although state licensing boards have taken more than their fair share of criticism for failing to discipline bad doctors as quickly and severely as circumstances merit, regulators appear to be trying to get ahead of a problem that especially plagues women patients and women health staff: doctors’ sexual misbehavior.

This inappropriate conduct can encompass a range of bad acts — all of which are unacceptable and should result in serious consequences for offenders, a viewpoint in the Journal of the American Medical Association argues. The article describes a review and consensus reached by the Federation of State Medical Boards, representing the 71 state medical and osteopathic regulatory boards — commonly referred to as state medical boards — in the United States, its territories, and the District of Columbia.

The authors wrote this:

March 30, 2021

USC to pay $1.1 billion to settle gynecologist’s hundreds of sex abuse cases

by Patrick A. Malone

The University of Southern California apparently has set a record — one which parents should pray no college has reason to challenge and for which the educators and leaders at the Los Angeles campus should be sorry and ashamed.

The Trojans have announced they will pay $1.1 billion to settle lawsuits over the tawdry actions of Dr. George Tyndall, who was the lone gynecologist for young women treated in the student health service.

The school has admitted that he saw 17,000 patients in his three decades at the school and sexually abused many of them. As the Los Angeles Times reported:

January 29, 2021

When end-of-life wishes get ignored, courts see another kind of malpractice

by Patrick A. Malone

Many Americans took a good step for themselves and their loved ones after getting shocked by learning about treatments, like prolonged machine ventilation, that coronavirus patients may undergo. Not for me, the healthy may have decided. They committed to determining end-of-life wishes, committing these to “advance directives” or POLST (portable orders for life-sustaining treatment) forms.

That may just the start of what people need to do with these formal documents, now easily found online, reported Paula Span, the New York Times’ “New Old Age” columnist. They need to do more. (Hint: Some of this even may be covered under older adults’ health insurance, especially Medicare).

They need to ensure that their doctors and their lawyers, too, support their recording of their end-of-life plans. These must be as clear, specific, and concise as possible, so there can be no mistaking what patients want with vague discussions, such as avoiding “heroic” or “unusual” interventions. They need loved ones to know where they may be stored, especially knowing how to locate them and give them to health workers, including first responders.

November 25, 2020

UC offers $73-million settlement in class-action suit over abusive gynecologist

by Patrick A. Malone

The University of California has offered to pay $73 million to settle with 5,000 women their class-action lawsuit asserting a staff gynecologist sexually abused them during medical procedures. This is yet another big case involving claims of years of widespread and sordid professional misconduct that somehow went undetected at a major institution, which has acknowledged it reacted poorly when confronted with a problematic clinician.

The proposed settlement still requires the sign-off of a federal judge, and it may not go through if more plaintiffs decide against joining this deal, as lawyers in Los Angeles have said they will not.

James Heaps, 67, a one-time gynecologist who is at the center of the scandal at UCLA, also still faces criminal charges for his actions during his 1983-2019 career at the university, in its student health center and at its medical center. The Los Angeles Times reported that the doctor was first arrested in June 2019 for sexually touching two patients in 2017. But then:

November 13, 2020

Patients finally gaining new access to medical records and doctors’ notes

by Patrick A. Malone

Millions of Americans may be finding that their doctors routinely refer to them with terms like SOB and BS. But patients will be better off with this knowledge, once they learn how to translate medical abbreviations.

The Associated Press reported that hospitals and health care systems nationwide quietly are complying with deadlines, and, under a 2016 federal law, are opening up convenient, fast access to patients to not only view and access their electronic health records but also physicians’ notes about their care. As the AP wrote:

“If you already use a patient portal such as MyChart to email your doctor or schedule an appointment, you may soon see new options allowing you to view your doctor’s notes and see your test results as soon as they are available. You may get an email explaining where to look, how to share access with a caregiver and how to keep other eyes off your information. Many people won’t notice a change. About 15% of health care systems already are letting patients read doctor notes online without charge. That means about 53 million patients already have access to their doctor’s notes.”

October 4, 2020

Unchecked Covid-19 pandemic gives U.S. a new reason to hold its breath

by Patrick A. Malone

Falsehoods, even when loudly repeated, do not magically become true. The Covid-19 pandemic rages across the United States, and the facts do not support in any way the myth that the nation is “rounding a corner” in seeing the disease diminish its destructive course or magically disappearing.

The toll of the coronavirus is ripping toward 210,000 deaths and more than 7.3 million infections, with those figures likely understated.

As the Washington Post reported of its data analysis:

May 11, 2020

U.S. botched testing. What about the next steps to fight Covid-19: tracing and isolating?

by Patrick A. Malone

As state and local officials struggle with constituents restless with measures designed to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, the next key phases in the battle with the novel coronavirus may prove yet more contentious. How ready are we to accept not just testing but also tracing and isolating infections?

The White House is bolting to a cut-and-run approach to fighting Covid-19, deflecting, denying and downplaying its staggering toll — more than 1 million infections and tens of thousands of deaths.

This already has led to a debacle with what needed to be an effective, widespread regimen of testing, testing, testing — not only to see who is infected now but also who may have been exposed to the disease and potentially have some immunity against it.

February 23, 2020

University of Michigan doctor accused of decades of sexual misconduct

by Patrick A. Malone

The University of Michigan is investigating allegations that Robert E. Anderson, former head of the university health service and physician to UM football teams coached by Bo Schembechler and Lloyd Carr, sexually assaulted youthful patients across decades.

Anderson worked for the university for more than 30 years and died in 2008. As the New York Times reported:

“Michigan said its campus police department had opened an inquiry last summer, after Warde Manuel, the athletic director, received a message from a former student who said that Anderson had engaged in abuse during medical exams in the ’70s. During the investigation, Michigan said, other people described ‘sexual misconduct and unnecessary medical exams,’ including at least one allegation that wrongdoing had occurred in the ’90s.”