It has been said that if there are not caps on the amount of money medical malpractice victims and their families can collect, then everybody will suffer - namely the healthcare professional and the hospital who were negligent. As a result, many states have passed medical malpractice damage caps. The goal of the caps is to lower premiums and medical malpractice insurance for the doctor under the guise that the patients will not have to pay an increased amount to their doctor. This is all tied up in something politicians have been arguing about called tort reform. Tort ...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most common types of personal injury acquired in the United States. TBI can result from many different types of accidents, and its effects can be equally diverse. One of the most common consequences of TBI is behavioral or personality changes. These changes can be difficult for loved ones to understand and just as difficult to deal with. Knowing what to expect and how to cope is essential incontinuing to provide a safe and comfortable space for your loved one to recover from this catastrophic injury. Changes Caused by TBI Common ...

When your elder enters a nursing home, you and your loved one are entrusting a great deal of trust to the facility. As your loved one ages, the nursing home staff will be responsible for providing care and proper living conditions. When nursing home staff violates this trust, the abuse can take many different forms. It may be difficult for you to recognize nursing home abuse, especially if your elder does not reach out to you for help. If you suspect nursing home abuse, you should not immediately dismiss your concerns. Even if the signs you are seeing are not covered ...

Childbirth is a time where everyone marvels at a medical miracle. Unfortunately, bringing a child into the world is a complicated process where a number of things can go wrong. Although parents may worry about deliveries that involve complications, no parent wants to imagine that their child won't have a chance at a normal life due to a doctor's error. Nevertheless, medical malpractice can (and does) occur during the birthing process. Malpractice is defined as negligence on the part of a doctor, nurse or other medical professional involved in the birth; essentially the ...

When people think about medical malpractice claims, they commonly worry about surgical errors where tools are left inside the patient, wrong site procedures, or medical charts being lost or misinterpreted. Despite the specter of harmful mistakes within the hospital setting (i.e. inpatient procedures), a surprising number of medical malpractice claims arise from outpatient treatment. A recent study by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that nearly half of the 10,739 malpractice claims paid in 2009 stemmed from outpatient treatments. Major injuries ...

A recent case in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals -- Holmstrom v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company -- could possibly change the landscape of disability claims brought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Disputes involving insurance claims that fall under the purview of ERISA are decided by federal courts. Illnesses of the type developed by Holmstrom (hers was a painful nerve condition that caused severe pain in her right arm and hand) are often difficult for insurance adjusters to quantify since they show no outward signs of medical defect. Disability ...

The extent of harm that drivers and passengers in other vehicles can suffer in truck accidents is due largely to the difference in mass between cars and semis. When the impact leads to catastrophic injuries or a wrongful death, the amount of damages can escalate quickly based on medical bills or a lifetime of lost income. The Pennsylvania Record recently reported on a fatal truck accident case that settled for over $26.1 million, a figure that would make it one of the largest personal injury litigation settlements in state history. The case involved a semi owned by Great ...

In an effort to address the growing problem of health insurance fraud around the state, the California Assembly recently passed bill AB 2138, which will increase the amount given to agencies responsible for investigating bad faith disability claims and other types of insurance fraud. Under the measure, the amount paid by health and disability insurers to investigate fraud would increase from 10 cents per insured person to up to 20 cents per insured. The additional funding would allow district attorneys' offices around the state to investigate and prosecute insurance fraud ...

Several high profiles news stories in the past few months have upped the ante in a growing national campaign to combat synthetic marijuana and other "designer drugs." While a handful of cases have featured graphic and sensational behavior, against a national backdrop, problems associated with synthetic drug use have remained a relatively minor blip on the radar screen. Yet, media attention on an issue that it's easy for politicians to be "tough on" can quickly focus the public dialogue. In Illinois, that focus has played out in the form of a new synthetic ...

It can be challenging to move past the end of a marriage. Likely, you'll be feeling a range of emotions, and will have to deal with significant life changes. Your financial future is one of the utmost long-term concerns after divorce. Two incomes have become one, and one household has become two; resources will be stretched thinner. However, while financial stability is an important issue after divorce, it can be addressed, with the proper planning, in a straightforward manner. Establish Your Own Economic Presence, Plan Ahead, Build Credit and Get Professional Assistance Certain ...

Jumeirah Group, the global luxury hotel company and member of Dubai Holding, recently hosted its global brand ambassador, golfer Rory McIlroy, at the Jumeirah Grand Hotel Via Veneto in Rome. The Jumeirah team in Rome treated Rory to an old-fashioned tour of The Eternal City on a classic Italian scooter. Rory's day in Rome included stopovers by must-see tourist areas, all located within short distance of Jumeirah Grand Hotel Via Veneto, such as the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps and Villa Borghese, where Rory had a chance to hit a few golf balls. A ...

Kuoni and the UK's largest healthcare charity Nuffield Health have selected six individuals to journey to radically different parts of the world as part of a unique study called 'The Holiday Health Experiment'. The experiment aims to better understand the health impact of different types of holiday on the wellbeing of the body and mind. 2,845 Brits entered The Holiday Health Experiment from April to June 2012. Before, during and after the trips all six individuals will undergo a variety of medical and psychological tests to look at the effects 'everyday life' has on ...

Why man has miscalculated wisdom education. Religion took the lead on wisdom and the religious scholars concluded that wisdom is from God. He 'gives' wisdom to whosoever He chooses. So wisdom is considered something that the chosen 'have'. Science followed the clue from religion and went about trying to 'give' wisdom by teaching wisdom. Students ended up having the knowledge of wisdom. Having the knowledge of wisdom did not make much of a difference in the student becoming wise. So wisdom education has remained more or less a failure to the extent that now hardly any ...

The highlight of Nicaragua's participation in this year's August edition of Sourcing at MAGIC will be a special, one-hour seminar titled "Nicaragua's Competitiveness as a Footwear Producer", which will showcase why Nicaragua has become an increasingly attractive footwear production platform in the region. The presentation will be at the Cultural Center on the show floor on Tuesday, August 21st from 3:30 - 4:30pm. The seminar will include presentations by Javier Chamorro, Executive Director of PRONicaragua, and Matt Priest, President of the Footwear Distributors ...

Next week, the legal team at the Law Offices of Joseph M. Lichtenstein will once again be taking on a complex case involving medical malpractice. Filing the case next week, their firm will be working to represent a family who is claiming they have been victimized by a mismanaged breech presentation that occurred one week prior to their expected delivery date. A breech presentation occurs when the child is entering the birth canal with their buttocks or feet first - this can severely complicate the entire birthing process. Per the claim, the physician negligently behaved ...

Instant Offer is currently being operated in a limited geographical area and will be closely monitored before potentially being rolled out more widely across the UK later in the year. Instant Offer is aimed at consumers who want to sell their car quickly and conveniently, at a fair price. The user enters details about their car and its condition on Autotrader.co.uk to receive an online offer. If they accept the offer, their car is inspected by an approved dealer to ensure it matches the description online, before the final offer is confirmed. Once the sale is agreed, ...

SALT LAKE CITY – Using advanced computer simulations, University of Utah College of Pharmacy researchers have produced moving images of a protein complex that is an important target for anti-cancer drugs. This advancement has significant implications for discovering new therapies that could attack cancer without damaging the DNA of healthy cells, according to an article published July 31, 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers used high-performance computing technology to demonstrate that a protein complex called LSD1/CoREST undergoes ...

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate's (S&T) new low-cost device for dismantling dangerous pipe bombs may look like a tinkerer's project, but that's no accident. The Semi Autonomous Pipe Bomb End-cap Remover (SAPBER) is unassuming in appearance, but sophisticated enough to preserve the forensic evidence needed to track down the perpetrator. "From ten paces away, you might mistake the contraption for a pressure washer," says S&T Program Manager Christine Lee. "But step closer and you'll find an ingenious device bristling with ...

The forests of the coastal regions from California to British Columbia are renowned for their unique and ancient animals and plants, such as coast redwoods, tailed frogs, mountain beavers and the legendary Bigfoot (also known as Sasquatch). Whereas Bigfoot is probably just fiction, a huge, newly discovered spider is very real. Trogloraptor (or "cave robber") is named for its cave home and spectacular, elongate claws. It is a spider so evolutionarily special that it represents not only a new genus and species, but also a new family (Trogloraptoridae). Even for the species-rich ...

Insomnia sufferers in England could have greater access to successful treatment, thanks to a training programme developed as part of trials of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Insomnia (CBTi), funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). In Britain, people report having insomnia more often than any other psychological condition, including anxiety, depression and even pain, according to the Office of National Statistics. Yet the only treatment offered in most doctors' surgeries is a course of sleeping tablets. "It is well known that sleeping pills can be ...

TUCSON, Ariz. (August 17, 2012) -- Mo Ehsani, Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at the University of Arizona, has designed a new, lightweight underground pipe he says could transform the pipeline construction industry. Instead of conventional concrete or steel, Ehsani's new pipe consists of a central layer of lightweight plastic honeycomb, similar to that used in the aerospace industry, sandwiched between layers of resin-saturated carbon fiber fabric. In combination, these materials are as strong, or stronger, than conventional steel and concrete pipes, which ...

When uncoupling proteins are active, mitochondria produce heat instead of ATP. This may be useful under certain circumstances, such as when an animal is hibernating. But non-hibernating animals also have them. Particularly poorly understood is the uncoupling protein UCP2. Elena Pohl and colleagues at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, show that the protein occurs mainly in cells of the immune system. The group's highly provocative findings are published in the online journal PLOS ONE. Mitochondria represent the powerhouses of the eukaryotic cell. They ...

Santa Cruz, California—Scientists have sequenced the genome of one of the iconic Galapagos finches first described by Charles Darwin. The genome of the medium ground finch (Geospiza fortis) is among the first of a planned 100 genomes of vertebrate species to be sequenced and released by an international collaboration between the Genome 10K project and BGI. This finch genome, the first of the BGI-Genome 10K collaboration to be made available through the UCSC Genome Browser, represents both a scientific and a symbolic advancement, according to Duke University associate professor ...

New research, led by University of Warwick physicist Dr Kareem Osman, has provided significant insight into how the solar wind heats up when it should not. The solar wind rushes outwards from the raging inferno that is our Sun, but from then on the wind should only get cooler as it expands beyond our solar system since there are no particle collisions to dissipate energy. However, the solar wind is surprisingly hotter than it should be, which has puzzled scientists for decades. Two new research papers led by Dr Osman may have solved that puzzle. Turbulence pervades ...

Most people are not aware of the fact that 84% of the European crops are partially or entirely dependent on insect pollination. While managed honeybees pollinate certain crops, wild bees, flies and wasps cover a very broad spectrum of plants, and thus are considered the most important pollinators in Europe. The serious decline in the number of managed honeybees and wild bees reported in Europe over the last few decades has the potential to cause yield decreases with threats to the environment and economy of Europe. The future of the pollination services provided by bees ...