Malpractice Books

This book is all the more shocking when you realize that RIGHT NOW the taxpayer, thanks to credulous politicians like Senator Tom Harkin and Congressman Dan Burton and others, is being made to pay for "medical care" that is every bit as crazy as the things in this book. Someday someone will write a book like this but it will be about *present-day* nonsense, including a National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (the only center in the NIH oriented around the needs of practitioners - CAM practitioners in this case - as opposed to the needs of patients) that pays for psychic power therapy, a White House Commission on CAM headed by a former devotee of the Bhagwan guru whose group launched a biological attack in Oregon, and on and on ...

We have had a boom in interest in "alternative health care" recently, but that interest has been with us ever since there has been a medical establishment to which there could be "alternatives." In the American Midwest in the 1930s three alternative healers began a rise to financial, social, and political power. _Quacks & Crusaders: The Fabulous Careers of John Brinkley, Norman Baker, and Harry Hoxsey_ (University Press of Kansas) by Eric S. Juhnke documents the rise and fall of all three medical conmen, and gives a lesson in the dangers of credulousness.

John Brinkley was a licensed doctor, having graduated from a diploma mill. He latched on to the "gland transplant" experiments done on animals, and believed that transplanting animal glands into humans was a key for rejuvenation. "A man is as old as his glands, and his glands are as old as his sex glands," he proclaimed. Male goats were the randiest animals, so they were the tissue donors, but they turned out to be just the thing to boost female fertility and development of the bust, too. He compared himself to Jesus, gave sermons, and demonized the American Medical Association. Norman Baker specialized in cancer cures. He worked as a machinist and in vaudeville before settling down in Muscatine, Iowa. He persuaded city officials to let him start a radio station that would present honest-to-goodness down home programs as opposed to the high-brow fare coming from the cities. Baker called Morris Fishbein, the head of the AMA, the "Jewish dominator of the medical trust of America," and insisted that his clinic was a bastion for personal freedom and against the evils of urban industrialism. Harry Hoxsey proved to have the most staying power. He specialized in herbal cancer cures as well. Not a physician, he was able to enroll renegade physicians into his service, and he was bankrolled by an evangelist minister. In Dallas, he enjoyed poker, nightclubs, and womanizing, and his diatribes against interference by the AMA and the government won him friends from the political right wing.

Juhnke's tales of these colorful characters are great fun to read, even though the rascals bilked many of their patients of money and sometimes their lives. The eventual success of the AMA against them is not a pure victory; the shortcomings of the AMA at the time are examined here, too. Few people remember these quacks now. The towns that boosted them because they brought in business now view them as an embarrassing part of their histories. It is important that Juhnke has brought them again to our attention. We may no longer have such manifestations as goat gland transplants, but anyone who watches television knows that herbal cures, homeopathy, and healing magnets are still taking money from the gullible. There is still a large group of potential patients who view organized medicine (and governmental regulation of medical treatment) as some sort of conspiracy, and of course there are plenty of faith healers who are glad to have their flocks doubting the efficacy of regular medical treatment. People are finding it harder to pay for physicians, and drug costs are up. Brinkley, Baker, and Hoxsey may have eventually lost their power and their millions, but Juhnke's useful study reminds us that there are always healers ready to take their place.

This book is a fascinating insight into a man who (for whatever reason) decided to play God. It was scary to realise that he could get away with it for so long and that even after he was proven guilty he was being defended by the medical establishment. This is a well written book and although the author was involved first hand in the case he does writes from a third person perspective which makes it easy to read.
I would recommend this book highly.

Sugar, aspirin, fluoride, silver fillings, these are all things that most people believe are safe and that the government, our doctors, and mainstream media tell us are safe. But this medical doctor tells the truth as to why all these very common things are so dangerous.

For instance, aspirin, long touted to be a heart attack prevention pill, is actually more likely to cause a brain bleed since it weakens the vessels and causes internal bleeding. The study that said that aspirin prevented heart attacks was done with aspirin that was buffered with magnesium. Magnesium does in fact prevent heart attacks. But when the study was done without the buffering, the aspirin did not prevent heart attacks.

He gives the same kind of insiders look at all the other issues too. This is another book that any natural health practitioner should have on their bookshelf.

I would highly recommend this biography to anyone! Imagine a movie about Dr. Brinkley starring Robin Williams............

While I have never been in the position of losing a loved one under circumstances involving possible medical malpractice, I can't imagine a better resource for the person who has. Not only because all the information you need to know is presented here in a very concise yet easy to read style, this book doesn't gloss over the hard realities of what you may face should you decide to enter the legal arena. Straight shooting, this book can serve as a very constructive first step when checking out whether legal help is what you need at this point in your life.

I happenned across this gem in a used bookstore, attracted by the content and the combination of two major institutions in America- medicine and law.

Although this non-fiction account of a psychiatrist being sued by a patient for medical malpractice was written in the mid 80's, I found it informative and thought-provoking, especially in the areas of mental illness, psychotherapy, and courtroom tactics and techniques.

A graduate student filed suit against her psychiatrist after a suicide attempt resulted in major injuries requiring her to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life. The plaintiff contended her doctor's psychotherapy was ineffective in preventing her from trying to kill herself, thus asserting that psychiatrist, Sara C. Charles was negligent and liable for damages.

The plaintiff had been given a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), considered by many in the mental health field, one of the most difficult conditions to treat, let alone understand and describe to a judge and jury. It was a challenging and stimulating experience to read descriptions and rationale for the plaintiff's behavior, the treatment strategies used by Dr. Sara Charles, and the difficulty the plaintiff's lawyer had in grasping the dynamics and essential features of BPD.

THE DEFENDANT should whet the historical appetites of reflective mental health professionals. It can broaden the views of present day therapists if they compare and contrast the perceptions and treatment of BPD in 1985 to those of today. Interested readers can speculate how effective newer treatment approaches, such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy, would be. Would it have helped the plaintiff regulate her moods, tolerate her distress and develop her sense of self-acceptance? Would it have had enough impact to prevent the tragic results of the plaintiff's self-destructive communication of her emotional pain? Interesting questions indeed. Questions and subject matter that arise for many satisfied readers of the well-written and highly recommended DEFENDANT.

When someone is hurt during medical treatment it is an understandable reaction to blame the doctor for the harm. However, the great majority of errors which occur in medicine are a simple consequence of conscientious doctors being fallible human beings just like the rest of us. Hospital systems are generally full of design faults which pre-dispose doctors to make mistakes. Blaming doctors for simply being human directs attention away from these design faults, reduces the chance that system improvements will be made, and makes it likely that the same error will repeat itself in the future - thus perpetuating patient harm. Human error cannot be avoided, but patient harm can, through better systems and procedures. Genuinely negligent acts do occur in medicine, but it is important that these are distinguished from the inevitable human errors of clinicians doing their best. This is a distinction which is also required in law to ensure fairness in both the prosecution of negligent doctors and the compensation of harmed patients. This book goes several steps beyond the Institute of Medicine Report ("To Err is Human") in identifying the mechanisms and nature of error within health care and in its detailed discussion of the intricacies of culpability, blame, violation, error, legal fairness, and patient safety.

Use this work for the practical distillation of the anatomy and biomechanics of closed-head injury, associated physical and psychiatric disorders, treatment and vocational assessment, and case-handling tips for plaintiff and defense counsel. This gives you the detailed medical knowledge you need to understand the injury -- its causes and physical mechanics. It also covers the legal techniques and cases to evaluate and successfully try or settle closed-head injury cases

I found it very disturbing,the knowledge I recieved from this book will keep me on guard.I read this book some years ago and I want another

This book is great for anyone who needs a step by step understanding of the legal malpractice world. It is very intresting and priceless to the client who needs advice and guidence in how to recover damages when an attorney has done a wrong.