Constitutionality of Statutory Damage Caps
There is a serious shortage of radiologists in the United States. One trade journal recently reported there is an average of four vacancies per radiology department at American academic centers over the past two years. In response to the nationwide shortage and to the demand for more sophisticated scans to diagnose illnesses, physicians at many small American hospitals are relying on companies that outsource diagnosis tasks to offshore radiologists.
Failure to Diagnose a Heart Attack
Around the world, millions of people die each year from cardiovascular disease, and in the United States, it is the leading cause of death. A heart attack is defined as an injury to the heart muscle resulting from a lack of oxygen-filled blood. An interruption of the flow of blood to the heart can be caused by a blood clot, atherosclerosis, or a coronary artery spasm.
In an ordinary medical malpractice case, the fact that a patient sustained an injury does not in and by itself create a presumption that the physician was negligent. In order to succeed, the patient has to prove, among other things, that it was the physician’s treatment of the patient that caused the injury.