This is a real malpractice crisis

Not long ago, an organization named Keep Our Doctors in Nevada pressured the Legislature into an emergency session and persuaded Nevada citizens to vote for medical malpractice protection, all in the name of a phony “medical malpractice crisis.”

Dr. Dipak Desai and the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada were among the practices behind the Keep Our Doctors in Nevada group. As a result, medical providers, including Dr. Desai and his clinic, are protected by caps on damage awards.

Does anyone now think $350,000 is adequate compensation for the pain and suffering that will be endured by any patient of Dr. Desai who contracts HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B or hepatitis C?

Like many lawyers who represent injured medical patients, my firm fought against the caps, and I can tell you this is precisely the type of situation we were concerned about when the doctors and their insurance companies used the “Keep Our Doctors in Nevada” fear campaign to achieve their selfish goal of protective caps. The truth is we shouldn’t keep doctors such as Dr. Desai in Nevada, and doctors such as Dr. Desai don’t deserve protective caps so they can practice substandard medicine with no fear of a jury’s verdict.

This is a real “medical malpractice crisis,” and it will not be the last one unless and until doctors such as Dr. Desai can be held accountable in full for the pain and suffering caused by such blatant and irresponsible malpractice.

Nevada voters should demand that the doctors’ special shield law be repealed and that they be treated like the rest of us.

Jeff Gomel

LAS VEGAS

Bottom feeders

To the editor:

It’s hard to decide which is more deplorable: the greed associated with the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada’s reuse of syringes, exposing tens of thousands of people to deadly risk to save a few dollars, or the greed associated with the legal feeding frenzy that has surfaced in the past few days.

I’m sure that most lawyers are professionals who seek to help their clients, but the impression given by all those TV and newspaper ads makes all those jokes that compare lawyers to sharks and bottom feeders (sorry, I just insulted sharks) seem all too true.

Andy Perla

LAS VEGAS

High volume

To the editor:

The Review-Journal said it all in its Sunday editorial concerning the grossly unsanitary, invasive medical procedures conducted on an outpatient basis in Las Vegas: “The Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada is a high-volume gastrointestinal practice that performs a lot of colonoscopies.”

The key words are “high-volume.” That means lots of medical procedures, quickly done, producing lots of cash for the doctors who own the facilities, and reducing costs for insurers and HMOs paying for the procedures.

Setting aside the question of dangerous, unsanitary practices, an equally important question is: Were the medical evaluations of the patients’ colons done in an equally slipshod, high-volume manner? In other words, can Las Vegas area doctors and their patients trust the medical reports produced by the doctors doing the colonoscopies at these facilities?

“High-volume” means more than just lots of money from lots of patients. It can also mean the facilities’ doctors not devoting enough time and attention to what they should have been seeing through the colonoscope, and not spending the time to dictate a thorough report for the referring physician who ordered the colonoscopy.

If I were a doctor trying to avoid malpractice liability, arising out of having referred a patient to these facilities for a colonoscopy, and then having relied on a report from this slipshod operation, I would be advising my patients to have another colonoscopy, at a different facility with different doctors doing the evaluation and reporting.

Jennifer Shaw

LAS VEGAS

Disgusted

To the editor:

I just wanted to express the disgust of my entire family at the publication of the picture on Page 3B of Sunday’s newspaper, which showed a man grabbing his wife’s breast. What is the purpose of taking the picture, let alone publishing it? Show some class, for God’s sake.

Lisa McKenzie

HENDERSON

Not thinking

To the editor:

What could you have been thinking with “A Feel for the Moment” on Page 3B of Sunday’s newspaper? Was there a point to be made with that highly inappropriate picture and caption, or was that supposed to be a joke?

I am surely not the only Review-Journal reader who is offended. That is most certainly a new low for the Review-Journal.

Mary Ashcraft

HENDERSON