The Kowalski v. Johns Hopkins verdict is a legal travest

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you need to better educate yourself on these issues. Payments for medical negligence cases comprise roughly 2.4 percent of all healthcare costs. Yet, preventable medical errors are the fourth leading cause of death in the US, after heart disease, cancer, and Covid.

When a family suffers a medical negligence event, the future costs can be huge. Why should families bear the burden of the injuries? What if a person is a paraplegic after negligence? What if a person can never work again and support their family? What if a child needs a lifetime of medical care? A simple medical board complaint won’t do anything to help victims and make up for the losses.

Medical malpractice cases make our healthcare system safer. They are the only true check on the system.

Rising healthcare costs and insurance premiums are the result of the insurance greed and other systemic issues in healthcare.

OP here. To my knowledge, hospitals have very strict protocols about preventing medical errors. For instance when nurses give medications, they need to check the 5 rights first. Right[b] patient, [b]right[b] medication, [b]right[b] time, [b]right[b] dose and [b]right[b] route. All those prevention protocols are required by law. Medical malpractice cases don't make our healthcare system safer. They make people afraid to become doctors because they are afraid of being sued.

The other thing is people sue for plenty of other ridiculus reasons. A couple of years, my sister decided the school the district wanted to place my niece was not a good school. My niece goes to a private state-funded school for autistic kids. While she didn't sue she did get an attorney to bully the district into placing my niece in a different school. Who is she, a non-educator, to decide that a school still allowed to be open is not a good school?

I googled my sister's name and found a YouTube video of her in a zoom meeting hosted by a local non-profit. She told her story about getting an attorney and encourages other parents to "advocate" for their child. "Advocate" in this context means to disregard the advice of trained professionals and push for what you want until the school or district provides it. Imagine if diabetics told their doctors "well no doc, I know my body best and I'm telling you this dose of insulin is not right for me." They'd all be dead. Yet in the special needs parent world this behavior is often encouraged and praised. I also found out that federal law requires schools to pay for attorney fees for special-ed related cases if the parents win. I don't want my tax dollars to go to parents who [b]choose to hire an attorney to get what they want.

OP--so you're angry about the lawsuit because of your sister???
First of all, a school that is "still allowed to be open" is not necessarily one that is able to provide the services a kid with autism needs. And the legal standard (set by the Supreme Court) in special ed cases is not that parents get what they want, but that the child had services that provide educational benefit. As for judgments awarding legal expenses, this is a common outcome when one party prevails in a lawsuit of any kind. Also, special ed cases generally require the use of expert testimony--which is very expensive--but parents are NOT reimbursed for those costs.

I've been reading doctor's reactions to the Kowalski case. Many of them do believe that the evidence does not fit the illness Maya has been claimed to have and find the medical care she received--including the mom crushing oral Ketamine tablets and administering them via IV at home (mom was a nurse) very suspect. They also believe that the family was treated horribly by the hospital.

Not all bad doctors are prevented from practicing, even when their colleagues know they are bad doctors.

The real problem with med malpractice system is that most of the time, people who have a bad result from medical care--even when the doctor is at fault--actually cannot find a lawyer to sue. The amount of damages attainable has to be very large due to the expense of such lawsuits. And of suits that go to trial, most of the time (80%) the doctors win anyway. Meanwhile, someone can be terribly injured because something went wrong but there is no compensation at all because what went wrong is not clear medical error and lawyers don't think the case is highly winnable. And if someone suffered from poor medical care but didn't suffer "enough" no lawyer will file. Unless, of course, the person already has hundreds of thousands of dollars they can spare to go after the provider.

OP here. The school the district wanted to put my niece in provides services for kids with autism. My sister just decided it was a bad school and demanded the district's place my niece into a different school, even going so far as to getting an attorney to threaten the district when they wouldn't comply. But who is she to decide that school is a bad school?

Clearly she was right. It is almost impossible to get a win like you claim your sister did.

I don’t know why you keep posting. You weaken your argument with every post you make.

OP here. The only reason my sister got the school district to do what she wanted is because she hired an attorney and threatened an expensive lawsuit. She should not have done that and the district would have placed my niece in the school they wanted to. I don't know why she thinks it's a bad school.

My sister now part of a non-profit in our area that is dedicated to suing local school districts. They provide free legal services to parents and my sister encourages other parents of special needs to "advocate" for their child. "Advocate" means to harass and pressure the school until they they cave into the parents demands. The idea is that parents know more about their child's disability than professionals with degrees and years of education. This is a common theme in the special needs parent world that isn't seen anywhere else.

Imagine if diabetics told their doctors "I know my body best and I'm telling you this dose of insulin isn't right for me." They'd all be dead. Imagine if cancer patients told their doctors they don't need the chemo the doctor is recommending. Imagine if an asthmatic pressured their doctor to prescribe a different inhaler and won't stop harassing the doctor until their preferred inhaler is prescribed. This is exactly what Beata Kowalski and my sister did.

Would you tell your CPA how to do your taxes? Would you tell your mechanic how to fix your car? After all, it's your car and you know what it needs best. No. But in the special needs parent world, this type behavior is encouraged and celebrated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you need to better educate yourself on these issues. Payments for medical negligence cases comprise roughly 2.4 percent of all healthcare costs. Yet, preventable medical errors are the fourth leading cause of death in the US, after heart disease, cancer, and Covid.

When a family suffers a medical negligence event, the future costs can be huge. Why should families bear the burden of the injuries? What if a person is a paraplegic after negligence? What if a person can never work again and support their family? What if a child needs a lifetime of medical care? A simple medical board complaint won’t do anything to help victims and make up for the losses.

Medical malpractice cases make our healthcare system safer. They are the only true check on the system.

Rising healthcare costs and insurance premiums are the result of the insurance greed and other systemic issues in healthcare.

OP here. To my knowledge, hospitals have very strict protocols about preventing medical errors. For instance when nurses give medications, they need to check the 5 rights first. Right[b] patient, [b]right[b] medication, [b]right[b] time, [b]right[b] dose and [b]right[b] route. All those prevention protocols are required by law. Medical malpractice cases don't make our healthcare system safer. They make people afraid to become doctors because they are afraid of being sued.

The other thing is people sue for plenty of other ridiculus reasons. A couple of years, my sister decided the school the district wanted to place my niece was not a good school. My niece goes to a private state-funded school for autistic kids. While she didn't sue she did get an attorney to bully the district into placing my niece in a different school. Who is she, a non-educator, to decide that a school still allowed to be open is not a good school?

I googled my sister's name and found a YouTube video of her in a zoom meeting hosted by a local non-profit. She told her story about getting an attorney and encourages other parents to "advocate" for their child. "Advocate" in this context means to disregard the advice of trained professionals and push for what you want until the school or district provides it. Imagine if diabetics told their doctors "well no doc, I know my body best and I'm telling you this dose of insulin is not right for me." They'd all be dead. Yet in the special needs parent world this behavior is often encouraged and praised. I also found out that federal law requires schools to pay for attorney fees for special-ed related cases if the parents win. I don't want my tax dollars to go to parents who [b]choose to hire an attorney to get what they want.

OP--so you're angry about the lawsuit because of your sister???
First of all, a school that is "still allowed to be open" is not necessarily one that is able to provide the services a kid with autism needs. And the legal standard (set by the Supreme Court) in special ed cases is not that parents get what they want, but that the child had services that provide educational benefit. As for judgments awarding legal expenses, this is a common outcome when one party prevails in a lawsuit of any kind. Also, special ed cases generally require the use of expert testimony--which is very expensive--but parents are NOT reimbursed for those costs.

I've been reading doctor's reactions to the Kowalski case. Many of them do believe that the evidence does not fit the illness Maya has been claimed to have and find the medical care she received--including the mom crushing oral Ketamine tablets and administering them via IV at home (mom was a nurse) very suspect. They also believe that the family was treated horribly by the hospital.

Not all bad doctors are prevented from practicing, even when their colleagues know they are bad doctors.

The real problem with med malpractice system is that most of the time, people who have a bad result from medical care--even when the doctor is at fault--actually cannot find a lawyer to sue. The amount of damages attainable has to be very large due to the expense of such lawsuits. And of suits that go to trial, most of the time (80%) the doctors win anyway. Meanwhile, someone can be terribly injured because something went wrong but there is no compensation at all because what went wrong is not clear medical error and lawyers don't think the case is highly winnable. And if someone suffered from poor medical care but didn't suffer "enough" no lawyer will file. Unless, of course, the person already has hundreds of thousands of dollars they can spare to go after the provider.

Call me surprised. My child was diagnosed with a very common childhood aliment (type I diabetes) - do you know how many months, INOVA Fairfax ER, specialists and doctors saw him before I had to take him to the ER and demand they test his blood sugar? Not a single doctor he saw caught it and INOVA Fairfax basically called me a bad mother for demanding they run bloodwork so they didn't.

Now for the second time in 2 years have a mystery condition that no doctor or specialist can diagnose. Thankfully my condition doesn't involve pain and involves very real consequences so they can't claim that it isn't happening. At this point the doctors just say there is nothing they can do.

OP here. Did you report the doctors who failed to diagnose your son's diabetes to the state medical board? You should. The state will definitely take disciplinary action, despite what others on this thread are saying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you need to better educate yourself on these issues. Payments for medical negligence cases comprise roughly 2.4 percent of all healthcare costs. Yet, preventable medical errors are the fourth leading cause of death in the US, after heart disease, cancer, and Covid.

When a family suffers a medical negligence event, the future costs can be huge. Why should families bear the burden of the injuries? What if a person is a paraplegic after negligence? What if a person can never work again and support their family? What if a child needs a lifetime of medical care? A simple medical board complaint won’t do anything to help victims and make up for the losses.

Medical malpractice cases make our healthcare system safer. They are the only true check on the system.

Rising healthcare costs and insurance premiums are the result of the insurance greed and other systemic issues in healthcare.

OP here. To my knowledge, hospitals have very strict protocols about preventing medical errors. For instance when nurses give medications, they need to check the 5 rights first. Right[b] patient, [b]right[b] medication, [b]right[b] time, [b]right[b] dose and [b]right[b] route. All those prevention protocols are required by law. Medical malpractice cases don't make our healthcare system safer. They make people afraid to become doctors because they are afraid of being sued.

The other thing is people sue for plenty of other ridiculus reasons. A couple of years, my sister decided the school the district wanted to place my niece was not a good school. My niece goes to a private state-funded school for autistic kids. While she didn't sue she did get an attorney to bully the district into placing my niece in a different school. Who is she, a non-educator, to decide that a school still allowed to be open is not a good school?

I googled my sister's name and found a YouTube video of her in a zoom meeting hosted by a local non-profit. She told her story about getting an attorney and encourages other parents to "advocate" for their child. "Advocate" in this context means to disregard the advice of trained professionals and push for what you want until the school or district provides it. Imagine if diabetics told their doctors "well no doc, I know my body best and I'm telling you this dose of insulin is not right for me." They'd all be dead. Yet in the special needs parent world this behavior is often encouraged and praised. I also found out that federal law requires schools to pay for attorney fees for special-ed related cases if the parents win. I don't want my tax dollars to go to parents who [b]choose to hire an attorney to get what they want.

OP--so you're angry about the lawsuit because of your sister???
First of all, a school that is "still allowed to be open" is not necessarily one that is able to provide the services a kid with autism needs. And the legal standard (set by the Supreme Court) in special ed cases is not that parents get what they want, but that the child had services that provide educational benefit. As for judgments awarding legal expenses, this is a common outcome when one party prevails in a lawsuit of any kind. Also, special ed cases generally require the use of expert testimony--which is very expensive--but parents are NOT reimbursed for those costs.

I've been reading doctor's reactions to the Kowalski case. Many of them do believe that the evidence does not fit the illness Maya has been claimed to have and find the medical care she received--including the mom crushing oral Ketamine tablets and administering them via IV at home (mom was a nurse) very suspect. They also believe that the family was treated horribly by the hospital.

Not all bad doctors are prevented from practicing, even when their colleagues know they are bad doctors.

The real problem with med malpractice system is that most of the time, people who have a bad result from medical care--even when the doctor is at fault--actually cannot find a lawyer to sue. The amount of damages attainable has to be very large due to the expense of such lawsuits. And of suits that go to trial, most of the time (80%) the doctors win anyway. Meanwhile, someone can be terribly injured because something went wrong but there is no compensation at all because what went wrong is not clear medical error and lawyers don't think the case is highly winnable. And if someone suffered from poor medical care but didn't suffer "enough" no lawyer will file. Unless, of course, the person already has hundreds of thousands of dollars they can spare to go after the provider.

Call me surprised. My child was diagnosed with a very common childhood aliment (type I diabetes) - do you know how many months, INOVA Fairfax ER, specialists and doctors saw him before I had to take him to the ER and demand they test his blood sugar? Not a single doctor he saw caught it and INOVA Fairfax basically called me a bad mother for demanding they run bloodwork so they didn't.

Now for the second time in 2 years have a mystery condition that no doctor or specialist can diagnose. Thankfully my condition doesn't involve pain and involves very real consequences so they can't claim that it isn't happening. At this point the doctors just say there is nothing they can do.

OP here. Did you report the doctors who failed to diagnose your son's diabetes to the state medical board? You should. The state will definitely take disciplinary action, despite what others on this thread are saying.

No, they absolutely will not take disciplinary action for failure to diagnose that didn't result in death or serious injury. Basically never happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you need to better educate yourself on these issues. Payments for medical negligence cases comprise roughly 2.4 percent of all healthcare costs. Yet, preventable medical errors are the fourth leading cause of death in the US, after heart disease, cancer, and Covid.

When a family suffers a medical negligence event, the future costs can be huge. Why should families bear the burden of the injuries? What if a person is a paraplegic after negligence? What if a person can never work again and support their family? What if a child needs a lifetime of medical care? A simple medical board complaint won’t do anything to help victims and make up for the losses.

Medical malpractice cases make our healthcare system safer. They are the only true check on the system.

Rising healthcare costs and insurance premiums are the result of the insurance greed and other systemic issues in healthcare.

+1 agree with everything above and that OP is very naive. OP level of confidence in a "state investigation" is astounding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not worth arguing with OP, who is clearly a medical professional or married to a medical professional, possibly one who has been sued before due to negligence.

Disagree, OP is a troll. A doctor would know that state medical boards etc don't operate in the way described.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If anyone has been following the "Take Care of Maya" trial, the jury awarded the Kowalskis a whooping 7 million against Johns Hopkins. This is such a legal travesty.

When I was in middle school in the early 2000s, my classmate lost her little brother. The entire class made cards that said sorry for your loss, etc. I overheard conversations between teachers and paraprofessionals. They said to each other "if I were the parents, I would sue the hospital" or something along those lines several times.

I do understand it's hard to lose a child, but that doesn't automatically mean the hospital is at fault. If you think the hospital indeed did something wrong, you should be filing a complaint with the state medical board, not suing. They will do an investigation and decide if the hospital is at fault and take appropriate action, including revoking licenses if necessary. There is absolutely no need to sue a hospital ever. It raises healthcare costs for others and of course malpractice insurance, so no one will want to become a doctor because they are afraid some crazy person will sue them.

This is one of the reasons we have a teacher shortage. A teacher does something a parent doesn't like, a parent raises hell left and right with the administration or even sue the district for millions. Just look at the Savanna Redding case. The parent sued after the school strip-searched on suspicion she has drugs. If they had not strip-searched her and someone died of the drugs another parent would sue the school. Damned of you do, damned if you don't.

And here a family got $7 million just because they don't like a licensed child abuse pediatrics specialist doctor claimed Beata had Munchausen's. Now parents with Munchausen's can get $7 million by claiming licensed Hippocratic sworn doctors are fraudsters.

My sister did this. She decided the school the district wanted to put my autistic niece in is a bad school, so she got an attorney to bully the district into placing my niece in a different school. She calls this "advocating" for her child. My parents are Polish just like the Kowalskis and adwokat means lawyer in Polish and other languages. The last thing you should be doing is suing others.

I don't think those are mutually exclusive. I am a hospital nurse and I agree that people are sue happy in the US. People use it as a threat all the time when they don't get what they want in the hospital. And it can be stressful for all involved on the receiving end. But--having worked in health care--I think you are naive about how hospitals handle bad or negligent health care providers. Ask most hospital nurses-they all know at least one surgeon they would never let touch a family member because they have messed up so many times. But the hospitals look the other way despite concerns being raised bc it costs them money. A lot of hospitals settle out of court. It is actually not as easy as people make it seem to sue--there needs to be evidence of harm and dereliction of duty.

OP here. If a surgeon is indeed messing up so many times that they shouldn't be practicing, then the hospital is required to fire the surgeon. Moreover, the state will investigate and take away their license if necessary. Hospitals are over-regulated as it is. If you couldn't do your job right, the state would take away your license too. That's how it works.

What planet are you living on because none of this is true !

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you need to better educate yourself on these issues. Payments for medical negligence cases comprise roughly 2.4 percent of all healthcare costs. Yet, preventable medical errors are the fourth leading cause of death in the US, after heart disease, cancer, and Covid.

When a family suffers a medical negligence event, the future costs can be huge. Why should families bear the burden of the injuries? What if a person is a paraplegic after negligence? What if a person can never work again and support their family? What if a child needs a lifetime of medical care? A simple medical board complaint won’t do anything to help victims and make up for the losses.

Medical malpractice cases make our healthcare system safer. They are the only true check on the system.

Rising healthcare costs and insurance premiums are the result of the insurance greed and other systemic issues in healthcare.

OP here. To my knowledge, hospitals have very strict protocols about preventing medical errors. For instance when nurses give medications, they need to check the 5 rights first. Right[b] patient, [b]right[b] medication, [b]right[b] time, [b]right[b] dose and [b]right[b] route. All those prevention protocols are required by law. Medical malpractice cases don't make our healthcare system safer. They make people afraid to become doctors because they are afraid of being sued.

The other thing is people sue for plenty of other ridiculus reasons. A couple of years, my sister decided the school the district wanted to place my niece was not a good school. My niece goes to a private state-funded school for autistic kids. While she didn't sue she did get an attorney to bully the district into placing my niece in a different school. Who is she, a non-educator, to decide that a school still allowed to be open is not a good school?

I googled my sister's name and found a YouTube video of her in a zoom meeting hosted by a local non-profit. She told her story about getting an attorney and encourages other parents to "advocate" for their child. "Advocate" in this context means to disregard the advice of trained professionals and push for what you want until the school or district provides it. Imagine if diabetics told their doctors "well no doc, I know my body best and I'm telling you this dose of insulin is not right for me." They'd all be dead. Yet in the special needs parent world this behavior is often encouraged and praised. I also found out that federal law requires schools to pay for attorney fees for special-ed related cases if the parents win. I don't want my tax dollars to go to parents who [b]choose to hire an attorney to get what they want.

OP--so you're angry about the lawsuit because of your sister???
First of all, a school that is "still allowed to be open" is not necessarily one that is able to provide the services a kid with autism needs. And the legal standard (set by the Supreme Court) in special ed cases is not that parents get what they want, but that the child had services that provide educational benefit. As for judgments awarding legal expenses, this is a common outcome when one party prevails in a lawsuit of any kind. Also, special ed cases generally require the use of expert testimony--which is very expensive--but parents are NOT reimbursed for those costs.

I've been reading doctor's reactions to the Kowalski case. Many of them do believe that the evidence does not fit the illness Maya has been claimed to have and find the medical care she received--including the mom crushing oral Ketamine tablets and administering them via IV at home (mom was a nurse) very suspect. They also believe that the family was treated horribly by the hospital.

Not all bad doctors are prevented from practicing, even when their colleagues know they are bad doctors.

The real problem with med malpractice system is that most of the time, people who have a bad result from medical care--even when the doctor is at fault--actually cannot find a lawyer to sue. The amount of damages attainable has to be very large due to the expense of such lawsuits. And of suits that go to trial, most of the time (80%) the doctors win anyway. Meanwhile, someone can be terribly injured because something went wrong but there is no compensation at all because what went wrong is not clear medical error and lawyers don't think the case is highly winnable. And if someone suffered from poor medical care but didn't suffer "enough" no lawyer will file. Unless, of course, the person already has hundreds of thousands of dollars they can spare to go after the provider.

OP here. The school the district wanted to put my niece in provides services for kids with autism. My sister just decided it was a bad school and demanded the district's place my niece into a different school, even going so far as to getting an attorney to threaten the district when they wouldn't comply. But who is she to decide that school is a bad school?

Clearly she was right. It is almost impossible to get a win like you claim your sister did.

I don’t know why you keep posting. You weaken your argument with every post you make.

OP here. The only reason my sister got the school district to do what she wanted is because she hired an attorney and threatened an expensive lawsuit. She should not have done that and the district would have placed my niece in the school they wanted to. I don't know why she thinks it's a bad school.

My sister now part of a non-profit in our area that is dedicated to suing local school districts. They provide free legal services to parents and my sister encourages other parents of special needs to "advocate" for their child. "Advocate" means to harass and pressure the school until they they cave into the parents demands. The idea is that parents know more about their child's disability than professionals with degrees and years of education. This is a common theme in the special needs parent world that isn't seen anywhere else.

Imagine if diabetics told their doctors "I know my body best and I'm telling you this dose of insulin isn't right for me." They'd all be dead. Imagine if cancer patients told their doctors they don't need the chemo the doctor is recommending. Imagine if an asthmatic pressured their doctor to prescribe a different inhaler and won't stop harassing the doctor until their preferred inhaler is prescribed. This is exactly what Beata Kowalski and my sister did.

Would you tell your CPA how to do your taxes? Would you tell your mechanic how to fix your car? After all, it's your car and you know what it needs best. No. But in the special needs parent world, this type behavior is encouraged and celebrated.

Your “imagine if” examples are conveniently chosen in that they are situations where the correct course is likely to be obvious. That’s not always the case—and it’s particularly not always the case in the diagnosis Beata Kowalski’s daughter has.

If you haven’t been in a situation in which you know more about your dx than your provider, consider yourself lucky and maybe judge people who have a little less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you need to better educate yourself on these issues. Payments for medical negligence cases comprise roughly 2.4 percent of all healthcare costs. Yet, preventable medical errors are the fourth leading cause of death in the US, after heart disease, cancer, and Covid.

When a family suffers a medical negligence event, the future costs can be huge. Why should families bear the burden of the injuries? What if a person is a paraplegic after negligence? What if a person can never work again and support their family? What if a child needs a lifetime of medical care? A simple medical board complaint won’t do anything to help victims and make up for the losses.

Medical malpractice cases make our healthcare system safer. They are the only true check on the system.

Rising healthcare costs and insurance premiums are the result of the insurance greed and other systemic issues in healthcare.

OP here. To my knowledge, hospitals have very strict protocols about preventing medical errors. For instance when nurses give medications, they need to check the 5 rights first. Right[b] patient, [b]right[b] medication, [b]right[b] time, [b]right[b] dose and [b]right[b] route. All those prevention protocols are required by law. Medical malpractice cases don't make our healthcare system safer. They make people afraid to become doctors because they are afraid of being sued.

The other thing is people sue for plenty of other ridiculus reasons. A couple of years, my sister decided the school the district wanted to place my niece was not a good school. My niece goes to a private state-funded school for autistic kids. While she didn't sue she did get an attorney to bully the district into placing my niece in a different school. Who is she, a non-educator, to decide that a school still allowed to be open is not a good school?

I googled my sister's name and found a YouTube video of her in a zoom meeting hosted by a local non-profit. She told her story about getting an attorney and encourages other parents to "advocate" for their child. "Advocate" in this context means to disregard the advice of trained professionals and push for what you want until the school or district provides it. Imagine if diabetics told their doctors "well no doc, I know my body best and I'm telling you this dose of insulin is not right for me." They'd all be dead. Yet in the special needs parent world this behavior is often encouraged and praised. I also found out that federal law requires schools to pay for attorney fees for special-ed related cases if the parents win. I don't want my tax dollars to go to parents who [b]choose to hire an attorney to get what they want.

You are incredibly ignorant about children with disabilities, their needs, and how schools refuse or fail to follow laws related to IDEA. I would cut you out of my life if you were my sister. How dare you judge her when it is clear you understand none of it.

There is nothing worse than an idiot with strong opinions about something they know nothing about.

[Anonymous]

OP is so wildly ignorant that it’s almost astonishing to see. I feel so sorry for her poor sister, who sounds smart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you need to better educate yourself on these issues. Payments for medical negligence cases comprise roughly 2.4 percent of all healthcare costs. Yet, preventable medical errors are the fourth leading cause of death in the US, after heart disease, cancer, and Covid.

When a family suffers a medical negligence event, the future costs can be huge. Why should families bear the burden of the injuries? What if a person is a paraplegic after negligence? What if a person can never work again and support their family? What if a child needs a lifetime of medical care? A simple medical board complaint won’t do anything to help victims and make up for the losses.

Medical malpractice cases make our healthcare system safer. They are the only true check on the system.

Rising healthcare costs and insurance premiums are the result of the insurance greed and other systemic issues in healthcare.

OP here. To my knowledge, hospitals have very strict protocols about preventing medical errors. For instance when nurses give medications, they need to check the 5 rights first. Right[b] patient, [b]right[b] medication, [b]right[b] time, [b]right[b] dose and [b]right[b] route. All those prevention protocols are required by law. Medical malpractice cases don't make our healthcare system safer. They make people afraid to become doctors because they are afraid of being sued.

The other thing is people sue for plenty of other ridiculus reasons. A couple of years, my sister decided the school the district wanted to place my niece was not a good school. My niece goes to a private state-funded school for autistic kids. While she didn't sue she did get an attorney to bully the district into placing my niece in a different school. Who is she, a non-educator, to decide that a school still allowed to be open is not a good school?

I googled my sister's name and found a YouTube video of her in a zoom meeting hosted by a local non-profit. She told her story about getting an attorney and encourages other parents to "advocate" for their child. "Advocate" in this context means to disregard the advice of trained professionals and push for what you want until the school or district provides it. Imagine if diabetics told their doctors "well no doc, I know my body best and I'm telling you this dose of insulin is not right for me." They'd all be dead. Yet in the special needs parent world this behavior is often encouraged and praised. I also found out that federal law requires schools to pay for attorney fees for special-ed related cases if the parents win. I don't want my tax dollars to go to parents who [b]choose to hire an attorney to get what they want.

OP--so you're angry about the lawsuit because of your sister???
First of all, a school that is "still allowed to be open" is not necessarily one that is able to provide the services a kid with autism needs. And the legal standard (set by the Supreme Court) in special ed cases is not that parents get what they want, but that the child had services that provide educational benefit. As for judgments awarding legal expenses, this is a common outcome when one party prevails in a lawsuit of any kind. Also, special ed cases generally require the use of expert testimony--which is very expensive--but parents are NOT reimbursed for those costs.

I've been reading doctor's reactions to the Kowalski case. Many of them do believe that the evidence does not fit the illness Maya has been claimed to have and find the medical care she received--including the mom crushing oral Ketamine tablets and administering them via IV at home (mom was a nurse) very suspect. They also believe that the family was treated horribly by the hospital.

Not all bad doctors are prevented from practicing, even when their colleagues know they are bad doctors.

The real problem with med malpractice system is that most of the time, people who have a bad result from medical care--even when the doctor is at fault--actually cannot find a lawyer to sue. The amount of damages attainable has to be very large due to the expense of such lawsuits. And of suits that go to trial, most of the time (80%) the doctors win anyway. Meanwhile, someone can be terribly injured because something went wrong but there is no compensation at all because what went wrong is not clear medical error and lawyers don't think the case is highly winnable. And if someone suffered from poor medical care but didn't suffer "enough" no lawyer will file. Unless, of course, the person already has hundreds of thousands of dollars they can spare to go after the provider.

OP here. The school the district wanted to put my niece in provides services for kids with autism. My sister just decided it was a bad school and demanded the district's place my niece into a different school, even going so far as to getting an attorney to threaten the district when they wouldn't comply. But who is she to decide that school is a bad school?

Clearly she was right. It is almost impossible to get a win like you claim your sister did.

I don’t know why you keep posting. You weaken your argument with every post you make.

OP here. The only reason my sister got the school district to do what she wanted is because she hired an attorney and threatened an expensive lawsuit. She should not have done that and the district would have placed my niece in the school they wanted to. I don't know why she thinks it's a bad school.

My sister now part of a non-profit in our area that is dedicated to suing local school districts. They provide free legal services to parents and my sister encourages other parents of special needs to "advocate" for their child. "Advocate" means to harass and pressure the school until they they cave into the parents demands. The idea is that parents know more about their child's disability than professionals with degrees and years of education. This is a common theme in the special needs parent world that isn't seen anywhere else.

Imagine if diabetics told their doctors "I know my body best and I'm telling you this dose of insulin isn't right for me." They'd all be dead. Imagine if cancer patients told their doctors they don't need the chemo the doctor is recommending. Imagine if an asthmatic pressured their doctor to prescribe a different inhaler and won't stop harassing the doctor until their preferred inhaler is prescribed. This is exactly what Beata Kowalski and my sister did.

Would you tell your CPA how to do your taxes? Would you tell your mechanic how to fix your car? After all, it's your car and you know what it needs best. No. But in the special needs parent world, this type behavior is encouraged and celebrated.

Your “imagine if” examples are conveniently chosen in that they are situations where the correct course is likely to be obvious. That’s not always the case—and it’s particularly not always the case in the diagnosis Beata Kowalski’s daughter has.

If you haven’t been in a situation in which you know more about your dx than your provider, consider yourself lucky and maybe judge people who have a little less.

Op’s assumptions that public schools do the right thing for children with disabilities and follow the laws show her embarrassing ignorance. In my county the school system has been denying children basic services for decades and parents have to have advocates. It’s sickening to read her comments disparaging her sister and others for advocating for their children. I feel so sorry for her sister.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:If anyone has been following the "Take Care of Maya" trial, the jury awarded the Kowalskis a whooping 7 million against Johns Hopkins. This is such a legal travesty.

When I was in middle school in the early 2000s, my classmate lost her little brother. The entire class made cards that said sorry for your loss, etc. I overheard conversations between teachers and paraprofessionals. They said to each other "if I were the parents, I would sue the hospital" or something along those lines several times.

I do understand it's hard to lose a child, but that doesn't automatically mean the hospital is at fault. If you think the hospital indeed did something wrong, you should be filing a complaint with the state medical board, not suing. They will do an investigation and decide if the hospital is at fault and take appropriate action, including revoking licenses if necessary. There is absolutely no need to sue a hospital ever. It raises healthcare costs for others and of course malpractice insurance, so no one will want to become a doctor because they are afraid some crazy person will sue them.

This is one of the reasons we have a teacher shortage. A teacher does something a parent doesn't like, a parent raises hell left and right with the administration or even sue the district for millions. Just look at the Savanna Redding case. The parent sued after the school strip-searched on suspicion she has drugs. If they had not strip-searched her and someone died of the drugs another parent would sue the school. Damned of you do, damned if you don't.

And here a family got $7 million just because they don't like a licensed child abuse pediatrics specialist doctor claimed Beata had Munchausen's. Now parents with Munchausen's can get $7 million by claiming licensed Hippocratic sworn doctors are fraudsters.

My sister did this. She decided the school the district wanted to put my autistic niece in is a bad school, so she got an attorney to bully the district into placing my niece in a different school. She calls this "advocating" for her child. My parents are Polish just like the Kowalskis and adwokat means lawyer in Polish and other languages. The last thing you should be doing is suing others.

I don't think those are mutually exclusive. I am a hospital nurse and I agree that people are sue happy in the US. People use it as a threat all the time when they don't get what they want in the hospital. And it can be stressful for all involved on the receiving end. But--having worked in health care--I think you are naive about how hospitals handle bad or negligent health care providers. Ask most hospital nurses-they all know at least one surgeon they would never let touch a family member because they have messed up so many times. But the hospitals look the other way despite concerns being raised bc it costs them money. A lot of hospitals settle out of court. It is actually not as easy as people make it seem to sue--there needs to be evidence of harm and dereliction of duty.

OP here. If a surgeon is indeed messing up so many times that they shouldn't be practicing, then the hospital is required to fire the surgeon. Moreover, the state will investigate and take away their license if necessary. Hospitals are over-regulated as it is. If you couldn't do your job right, the state would take away your license too. That's how it works.

But that’s not how it works. the hospitals don’t fire them. You seriously think you know better than a nurse in the health system.

This is so true.

Hospitals aren't required to fire anyone and they don't fire incompetent doctors. Their cases go to M&M and they get discussed, but hospitals cannot tell a doctor they are too old or too incompetent to practice. To get them away from patient care they will promote them to fake positions where they are "supervisors" and "teachers". The way most hospitals get rid of old doctors who refuse to retire is through breech of contract when they don't meet their required hours and patient care metrics. It's still not easy.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I just watched the documentary. What a hearbreaking story. Yes, I understand CPS having to investigate. But two doctors who had treated Maya collaborated the mother's story of the diagnosis and recommended treatment. But Johns Hopkins didn't agree. During the investigation, the Kowalski's lawyers discovered that the doctors at Johns Hopkins did treat Maya with the same medicine her original doctor had prescribed - so they must have agreed with the diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and knew that the course of treatment worked. I normally don't agree with suing, but in this case it was 100% warranted.

More than that, the hospital actually billed her insurance under the diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. There was never any alternative diagnosis other than Munchausen by proxy which obviously got ruled out pretty quick as she was still sick despite total separation from the family. The professional conduct of the medical doctors involved was sick as f&ck too. They celebrated the suicide of her Mother.

The is pretty commonplace. They billed under the working diagnosis. The hospital is going to bill the patient’s insurance no matter what, with or without an official diagnosis.

Often times a patient begins treatment under one working diagnosis, but then a lab result comes in that forces a change in the diagnosis - the hospital still gets paid for what it did under the working diagnosis.

In this case, JH billed under the working diagnosis. Even while exploring other options. I feel like this is common practice.

Since they failed to diagnose any other issue, that implies they shouldn't have been paid and pay the family for damages, which the court is now telling them to do.

Her treatment was experimental. And extreme.

So? It worked. JHU failed to come up with anything else. So it pays the price.

Did it work? She improved over time, which is not uncommon for her diagnosis and for many diagnoses. Maybe the treatment was just painful without helping?

DP.

Then why did JHU continue the treatment?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I just watched the documentary. What a hearbreaking story. Yes, I understand CPS having to investigate. But two doctors who had treated Maya collaborated the mother's story of the diagnosis and recommended treatment. But Johns Hopkins didn't agree. During the investigation, the Kowalski's lawyers discovered that the doctors at Johns Hopkins did treat Maya with the same medicine her original doctor had prescribed - so they must have agreed with the diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and knew that the course of treatment worked. I normally don't agree with suing, but in this case it was 100% warranted.

More than that, the hospital actually billed her insurance under the diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. There was never any alternative diagnosis other than Munchausen by proxy which obviously got ruled out pretty quick as she was still sick despite total separation from the family. The professional conduct of the medical doctors involved was sick as f&ck too. They celebrated the suicide of her Mother.

The is pretty commonplace. They billed under the working diagnosis. The hospital is going to bill the patient’s insurance no matter what, with or without an official diagnosis.

Often times a patient begins treatment under one working diagnosis, but then a lab result comes in that forces a change in the diagnosis - the hospital still gets paid for what it did under the working diagnosis.

In this case, JH billed under the working diagnosis. Even while exploring other options. I feel like this is common practice.

Since they failed to diagnose any other issue, that implies they shouldn't have been paid and pay the family for damages, which the court is now telling them to do.

Her treatment was experimental. And extreme.

So? It worked. JHU failed to come up with anything else. So it pays the price.

Did it work? She improved over time, which is not uncommon for her diagnosis and for many diagnoses. Maybe the treatment was just painful without helping?

Point being that JHU was wrong. Period, end of story. At no time were they right. In the process they condoned physical abuse of a child and inflicted psychological harm. So they have to pay. Pretty simple

That's what the court said. This isn't the court, thie is a discussion board, we can think differently. We can discuss.

The family, the mother, certainly weren't the best carers for the child. The mother suffered from an incurable fatal mental illness.

It makes perfect sense that the mother was mentally fragile. She had a daughter with an expensive, rare, probably incurable and misdiagnosed disease. She was probably worrying, sleeping little and working overtime to cover med bills.

The hospital could have allowed the mother supervised visits once it was clear that the child was not getting better even when removed from her mother's care.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP, you need to better educate yourself on these issues. Payments for medical negligence cases comprise roughly 2.4 percent of all healthcare costs. Yet, preventable medical errors are the fourth leading cause of death in the US, after heart disease, cancer, and Covid.

When a family suffers a medical negligence event, the future costs can be huge. Why should families bear the burden of the injuries? What if a person is a paraplegic after negligence? What if a person can never work again and support their family? What if a child needs a lifetime of medical care? A simple medical board complaint won’t do anything to help victims and make up for the losses.

Medical malpractice cases make our healthcare system safer. They are the only true check on the system.

Rising healthcare costs and insurance premiums are the result of the insurance greed and other systemic issues in healthcare.

OP here. To my knowledge, hospitals have very strict protocols about preventing medical errors. For instance when nurses give medications, they need to check the 5 rights first. Right[b] patient, [b]right[b] medication, [b]right[b] time, [b]right[b] dose and [b]right[b] route. All those prevention protocols are required by law. Medical malpractice cases don't make our healthcare system safer. They make people afraid to become doctors because they are afraid of being sued.

The other thing is people sue for plenty of other ridiculus reasons. A couple of years, my sister decided the school the district wanted to place my niece was not a good school. My niece goes to a private state-funded school for autistic kids. While she didn't sue she did get an attorney to bully the district into placing my niece in a different school. Who is she, a non-educator, to decide that a school still allowed to be open is not a good school?

I googled my sister's name and found a YouTube video of her in a zoom meeting hosted by a local non-profit. She told her story about getting an attorney and encourages other parents to "advocate" for their child. "Advocate" in this context means to disregard the advice of trained professionals and push for what you want until the school or district provides it. Imagine if diabetics told their doctors "well no doc, I know my body best and I'm telling you this dose of insulin is not right for me." They'd all be dead. Yet in the special needs parent world this behavior is often encouraged and praised. I also found out that federal law requires schools to pay for attorney fees for special-ed related cases if the parents win. I don't want my tax dollars to go to parents who [b]choose to hire an attorney to get what they want.

Maybe watch the trial before you jump to conclusions. The reason for the verdict is exactly because the hospital has zero protocols and let one doctor and one hospital employed social worker go roque. They did not just misdiagnose, they isolated a 10 year old for 90 days and would not let her even talk to other children, all while causing the child immense pain and having her defecate herself because they thought she was faking her pain. This was beyond gross negligence. It was abuse.

The hospital needed to pay, to give hospitals reason to make sure they have guardrails in place so such abuse does not happen again.

Watch the trial before you make judgements.

[Anonymous]

FYI there’s no way the family directly got all $211 million. The lawyers took at least $100 million and insurance another $50 million if not more due to the length of the hospital stay, extra medication, extra attention and “treatment” given the room she stayed in, and more. Given how lengthy the legal process and due diligence was, the law firm may have taken more. I’d be surprised if the firm itself won’t ask for another appeal to seek more money as the healthcare industry is lucrative (I guess that’s where the sexual harrassment/assault case plays in, so I guess they already have started to seek more money). I’d say the family only received $50 million give or take. Sounds a lot until you realize where that money has to go: protection of the family in case of further harm, increased insurance premium, new medical costs associated with the trauma of Maya, etc.

Cases with big payouts in the headlines don’t consider the cost of law firms, especially large ones who charge $800/lawyer assigned/billable hour, and that is average.