Medical Malpractice Lawyer Interviews

Houston, TX: None of the local law enforcement agencies were taking action against a Houston doctor for medical malpractice who operated a "pill mill," so attorney Tommy Hastings said he would. "The Skorpenske family was very good about explaining what the problem is and how it affects all of us," says Hastings. "It was hard to look at the faces of the people in that family and tell them no."

Vancouver, BC: In June 2008 David Earl Meisner was given the bad news at Surrey Memorial Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia. His prostate cancer had spread and was causing the lower back pain that had brought Meisner to the hospital in the first place. The only option at this point was a palliative radiation therapy. Meisner was terminal.

San Marino, CA: Dr. Angelique Campen did some serious soul searching before she decided to sue the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for delivering substandard care to her infant daughter. "It took her a long time to gather the strength to bring this medical malpractice lawsuit on behalf of her child because she is a practicing physician," says Dr. Campen's lawyer, Diane Corwin. "The potential fallout from the medical community makes it hard to bring a lawsuit like this."

Memphis, TN It isn't easy to sue your doctor in Tennessee. Plaintiffs lose more medical malpractice suits they win in that state. But Courtney Hill's story of a lump in her breast--that doctors ignored until it was too late-proved to be so compelling that the jury recently awarded Hill and her husband $24 million.

Charlottesville, VA: A former operating room nurse, who claims she herself was the victim of a botched surgery, is speaking out loud and clear about medical malpractice and medical mistakes that injure or kill thousands and thousands of Americans every year. "I have been accused of being too passionate," says Helen French," but I am just trying to save people's lives.

Cumming, GA: Attorney Donald Singleton was recently contacted by a woman who believes she was the victim of pharmaceutical malpractice. The potent prescription painkillers she got from her pharmacist for her chronic pain condition turned out to be a heavy dose of anti-inflammatory steroid. "After a few days, the pain she could usually control with her prescription was still there, she was feeling sick and realized the pills in the bottle were the wrong ones," says Singleton, who is currently investigating the "mis-prescription" as a potential case of pharmaceutical malpractice.

Irvine, CA: You might say that a young California woman who went to court seeking damages as a result of a hip surgery that went terribly wrong, won the battle but lost the war. Her attorney, Sean M. Burke, an experienced personal injury lawyer who has fought many a battle on behalf of people injured through medical malpractice, presented the facts of case, the jury understood and awarded Erica Rockabrand $2.9 million dollars for the botched surgeries that left the young woman to face a life of chronic pain.

Cleveland, OH: A recent medical malpractice case tried by Cleveland medical malpractice attorney Peter Weinberger is leaping off the court docket and into print for a couple of reasons. First, there aren't many cases where a patient undergoing surgery is injured by a fire in the operating room. "This is a first for me," says Wienberger from the highly regarded firm of Spangenberg, Shibley & Liber, "and I hope it is the last."

Washington D.C.: Attorney Michael Abelson became interested in chiropractic malpractice 5 years ago when a woman came to his law office in Washington D.C. and told him that her husband had died just two hours after having a neck manipulation. "He was found unconscious at home, rushed to a hospital in Maryland and died six days later," Abelson recalls. "The medical examiner found that the stroke he had suffered was caused by a chiropractic cervical manipulation," he says. The man was 39-years-old.

Columbia, S.C. Exactly one year after a little 4-year-old girl with cerebral palsy died from complications, a jury ordered the Piedmont Medical Centre in South Carolina to pay $4.4 million in damages to her grieving family. "If the medical malpractice award in this case seems large it's because the damages to the child in this case were horrendous," says attorney Kenneth Suggs.