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Medical Malpractice Videos

Below are some of our videos explaining medical malpractice. To learn more about the types of acts and injuries that make up a case, click Medical Malpractice Litigation.

 
 
 
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Hello. I'm Virginia Buchanan and I'm the head of the medical malpractice department at Levin Papantonio. For nearly 25 years I've been handling medical negligence claims. It's work that I love and I have fine clients to represent and help them through very difficult times.

One of the things that occurs to me regularly and always occurs to my clients is, why does malpractice happen? Why does it keep happening? Can't anything be done about it? Unfortunately, most of the time it's because something has already happened that that issue is raised, but it is something that I think about and reflect upon as I prepare these cases and I deal with people who've had devastating consequences as a result of a medical procedure or other medical care.

One of the things that we know, that our landscape has changed, that doctors are paid less money to see more patients. Hospitals get less reimbursement to have patients on their floors, so they have less staff taking care of more people within the hospital walls. Unfortunately, that's a recipe for disaster.

We also know there are a number of other factors. We have burnout; we have fatigue. It's certainly not uncommon to have a medical resident on duty for 24 or more hours straight, dealing with highly complicated medical issues and a number of patients. It's really no surprise that things would go wrong. It's very tragic, but it's certainly predictable that it would occur.

One of the other things that I think people don't realize, but it's reported in the medical literature, that approximately 10 to 15% of nurses are predicted to have substance abuse issues, whether alcohol, prescribed medication, or illegal drugs. Again, it's not surprising that someone who's impaired would have a very difficult time taking care of patients.

Another problem that I see in my practice and I've seen it occur in numerous catastrophic losses ... We have nurses who are brought in from agencies who have no experience on a particular medical floor. They don't know the hospital. They don't know the medication dispensing system. They don't know where the equipment is. They don't know the procedures for utilizing electronic medical records. Sadly, an unqualified nurse can miss something that can be life or death for a patient. This includes pediatric patients, adult patients, elderly patients, the people in our society who are the most vulnerable, those who are critically ill.

So, assigning a qualified and competent, well-experienced healthcare provider who's rested, who's not impaired, is critical. It can make all the difference to whether you have the outcome that you need, that you deserve when you trust your life to a healthcare provider. We at Levin Papantonio try to find those things. If there's a reason, if there's an explanation, if there's medical malpractice behind what occurred, we use the resources that we've garnered over the 50 years plus that the firm has been in existence to try to find out those things, to try to help you understand why something very difficult, very unfair, and very devastating has happened in your life.

If we can help you, please give us a call. Our malpractice department has multiple staff members and several attorneys on call at virtually any time of the day or night. Our number is 850-435-7023.

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