• Am J Otolaryngol · Nov 2018

    A tough pill to swallow: Medicolegal liability and dysphagia.

    • Christopher Badger and Sunil P Verma.
    • Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of California-Irvine, Orange, CA, United States of America. Electronic address: badgerc@uci.edu.
    • Am J Otolaryngol. 2018 Nov 1; 39 (6): 698-703.

    Level Of EvidenceLevel 4 (Case Series).ObjectiveDysphagia is a debilitating condition that is associated with many etiologies. It can have a devastating effect on a patient's quality of life with long-term sequelae that make it a source of medical malpractice litigation. This study analyzed medical malpractice cases involving dysphagia and looked for factors determining legal liability.MethodsThe Westlaw Next legal database (Thomson Reuters, New York, NY) was searched for relevant malpractice cases and assessed for several factors including if the dysphagia was iatrogenic, the amount paid by the defendant, and the medical specialty of the defendants.ResultsA total of 45 cases of dysphagia were included. The majority of these cases were jury verdicts for the defendant (73.3%). Iatrogenic dysphagia was alleged in 55.5% of cases. Settlements and verdicts favoring the plaintiff resulted in awards ranging between $25,000 and $5,003,000 with a mean of $1,014,015. The most frequent physician specialists named were general surgeons (24.1), internists (11.1%), anesthesiologists (9.3%), gastroenterologists (7.4%), and otolaryngologists (5.6%). Iatrogenic dysphagia (OR 8.89 CI 1.02-77.32), medication-related iatrogenesis (OR 18.86 CI 1.82-195.41), and cases naming multiple specialties as a defendant (OR 5.90, CI 1.07-32.55) were factors associated with a verdict for the plaintiff or a settlement.ConclusionDysphagia is a condition with medicolegal consequences for many specialties. While the majority of these cases are decided in favor of the defendant the cost of a negative outcome is considerable. Iatrogenic dysphagia and naming more than one defendant specialty were associated with increased odds of a plaintiff verdict or settlement.Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…