Medical Malpractice: A Preventable or Inevitable Issue

Sudden death and sport--preventable or inevitable.

Physical exertion is not now an essential part of many people's working existence and because hard physical labour was the lot of the "labouring classes" from which many people have tried to escape by getting more genteel occupations, the correlates of exertion, heavy breathing and sweating are considered "not nice" and associated with the lower orders. A gentleman no less than a lady does not ...

Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome (MODS): Is It Preventable or Inevitable?

Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) is a systemic, dysfunctional inflammatory response that requires long intensive care unit (ICU) stay. It is characterized with high mortality rate depending on the number of organs involved. It has been recognized that organ failure does not occur as an all-or-none rule, but rather a range of organ dysfunction exists resulting in clinical organ failure...

Medical Malpractice Crisis Medical Malpractice Crisis

Medical malpractice.

Few issues in health care spark as much ire and angst as medical-malpractice litigation. Physicians revile malpractice claims as random events that visit unwarranted expense and emotional pain on competent, hardworking practitioners. Commentators lament the “lawsuit lottery,” which provides windfalls for some patients, but no compensation for the vast majority of patients injured by medical car...

Mortality in COPD: Inevitable or Preventable? Insights from the Cardiovascular Arena

Mortality due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease continues to rise, whereas mortality rates related to cardiovascular disease appear to be slowing, or even declining. This is due at least in part to more widespread use of preventative therapies that have been shown to reduce cardiovascular mortality, raising the question of whether appropriate use of therapies for chronic obstructive pulm...

Psychiatrist and Biographer Differ over Anne Sexton's Suicide. Was It Preventable or Inevitable?

Anne Sexton; A Biography by Diane Middlebrook is discussed in terms of the role Martin T. Orrre played in its creation, particular y the controversial release of the ps ychiatrist’s therapy tapes with the poet. Ome’s Foreword to the biography, in which he expresses the view that Sexton’s suicide was preventable, is reprinted. Middlebmak srgues that Sexton had reached a point in her life where t...