Has anyone sued their doctor for negligence?

I believe your problems are real,

 

Yes, besides, you can't make this stuff up.  Why would anyone?

P.S.  Other factors exacerbating and/or triggering do not negate the root cause of suffering which is malpractice.

Looking at several siggys, its obvious that many (most?) of you took your benzos for 4, 5, or more years.

 

So did you not see an obvious, positive, therapeutic effect?  And if they did not benefit you, why did you continue to take them?

 

FYI, I was fully cognizant that I would very likely develop a benzo dependency, but the therapeutic relief that they gave me justified whatever difficulties that followed.  If my original underlying disorder ever returned, diazepam would be my first, go-to therapy.  I even keep some of my old stock om hand, just in case.

 

Actually, I tried to taper 1yr 9mo.’s after I first started... that’s a little past the recommended prescribing timeframe of 2-4 weeks I had no idea that doctors were supposed to follow but it isn’t four years either.

 

I am sure by now I could have had much better medical care when I was originally rx’d for PTSD from an abusive relationship.

 

What I needed was counseling for PTSD and abuse and for someone to see that I needed to go for help because I was an alcoholic trying to self medicate with alcohol and marijuana for trauma, grief and abuse.

 

What I needed was someone to hear me and actually look at my actual patient history, life circumstances and trauma and perhaps be on the antipsychotic I was on, be helped properly with ptsd and grief and get information and direction about what to do when you have been in an abusive relationship with a personality disordered individual. I needed to know what personality disorders even are.

 

What else I likely needed was someone to tell me you have to make the choice to get help for alcohol and stop drinking— now. You need support and appropriate and effective counseling for these specific needs and we will allow you to be on Xanax for four weeks but after this it is not recommended and at the most what we can do is cross you over to Valium (diazepam) and do a fairly rapid taper from there.

 

Someone to say that the longer you are on a benzodiazepine, especially a highly potent one, the more the dangers increase and it is not just addiction we are talking about. Please go online and see how there are people who have ended up much worse staying on these long term, and apart from all of this we are not entirely sure about the potential other health risks and carcinogenic properties of benzodiazepines.

 

Something along those lines, and probably I could have received much safer and more effective therapy and medical counsel from a therapist and psychiatrist who saw my grief for what it was, and family dynamics and family medical history, at sixteen and didn’t immediately reach for a prescription  for Prozac but instead explained some truth to me and helped me learn how to actually feel my emotions and learn about healthy boundaries. Probably some things to look out for and help me see what kind of choices are available to teenagers and why some feel the need to rebel or disappear into their parents and all the real things about life and consequences and family dynamics and emotions that people know and never talk about because they are too frightened or ashamed to face and recognize for whatever reason. The parts about life which are discoverable by people who profess to devote their lives to the study of the human psyche and human relationships and mental health. There is a kind of advice that could have helped me, and could help others too with various kinds of individual life circumstances and scenarios, and there also is a way to sit with someone and allow them to feel their emotions and to feel safe and validated, and to help them with life skills and strategies for personal development and self protection... and even facing existential questions. There are ways to do these things and they are not all highly complicated. Self-calming techniques, many things.

 

The basic things that therapists and psychiatrists should really understand better by now, the things I am finally seeing in all their paired-down practicality and the things it shouldn’t have taken years of clueless and helplessly scared and uninformed living to barely survive through to find out.

 

At the very least, though I understand that the world is a complete mess, it seems we all could have been warned. Certainly this is reason enough for someone to consider starting a thread about whether anyone here has persued legal action.

 

To be battling the effects of a drug prescribed by a doctor for four years and counting and nearly loosing one’s life repeatedly in the process is something a patient probably should have been warned about as a potential outcome of using said “medicine.”

I agrees with everything you say. How are you feeling these days?

Yes, Luke Montagu and Ray Nimmo.

 

Although, they may have settled out of court so this may or may not be considered successful.

 

I think of it as successful but I know how people on BB get there little pink panties in a bunch sometimes.

but I know how people on BB get there little pink panties in a bunch sometimes.

 

Please explain.

but I know how people on BB get there little pink panties in a bunch sometimes.

 

Please explain.

 

Anyhow, I don't assume everyone checks back on threads they have posted to.  But re out of court settlements, if an out of court settlement was a further insult to the plaintiff, there may be good reason not to consider it any sort of success.  I've worked with attorneys that have advised clients to accept bread crumbs vs. nothing at all. 

 

Something else that I don't think can be emphasized enough.  If there is an actual good win for a client, one cannot forget the percentage of such win for attorney fees.   

I think that the whole standard of care doctrine is very difficult to overcome. If a doctor prescribed x, y, and z to a patient long-term and the patient ends up harmed and sues, that patient has a much better chance of winning if this were the only doctor in the area prescribing x, y and z long-term, and if x, y and z are an uncommon, potentially dangerous combination of medications not commonly prescirbed for the conditions patient presented with.

 

However, if almost all doctors in the area prescribe x, y, and z long-term, then the standard of care situation gets much more complicated since this particular doctor is not doing anything different or more negligent from the other doctors who are doing pretty much the same thing.

 

If I were the doctor, I'd defintely prepare some affirmative defenses saying that the plaintiff had gotten the same level of care that plaintiff would have gotten at most any other doctor in the area and that prescribing x, y and z for {"insert condition"} is a standard practice according to DSM-V/accepted prescribing standards/APA etc. etc. I would quickly say that these are very commonly prescribed medications, and while there are risks, the benefits far outweigh the risks, and are therefore correct medications to prescribe for a given condition.

 

I think most doctors would go with that defense: "you came into my office with a, b, and c". Per various guidelines, x treats a, y treats b, and z treats c. Almost all doctors in the area follow the same protocol, so I have done my due diligence"

 

Personally, I think this is pretty tough to go up against. I think the plaintiff would have to show that the doctor had performed below a certain standard of care that is expected in the area where the doctor practices and based on the conditions the patient is being treated for.

 

https://www.gilmanbedigian.com/how-is-the-standard-of-care-determined

Just found this today. Thought I'd share:

 

https://wa.kaiserpermanente.org/static/pdf/public/guidelines/benzo-zdrug.pdf

 

http://centralnewyork.mdnews.com/physician%E2%80%99s-duty-warn-doctor%E2%80%99s-duty-care-extended-third-parties

RxDamaged, WOW, I wish that was in California and in all states!! It's too important to be left out. There are too many pills and not enough info on interactions, body type, etc. I've got to say that in all the pills I've taken, NOT ONCE have I been given any guidelines about them. Maybe they're afraid the patient won't take them? Maybe they expect the patient will do their own sleuthing?

 

NO ONE should be told that they have to be on a pill for life after the fact!!

RxDamaged, WOW, I wish that was in California and in all states!! It's too important to be left out. There are too many pills and not enough info on interactions, body type, etc. I've got to say that in all the pills I've taken, NOT ONCE have I been given any guidelines about them. Maybe they're afraid the patient won't take them? Maybe they expect the patient will do their own sleuthing?

 

NO ONE should be told that they have to be on a pill for life after the fact!!

 

Regardless, legal precedent matters.

NO ONE should be told that they have to be on a pill for life after the fact!!

 

No. It's completely hope extinguishing and unhelpful to hear, to say the least.

50 states of the United States reference.

 

https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/medicalmalpractice/otherjurisdictions

Hi Godhelpme,

 

Thanks and thank you for asking how I am. It is a complicated answer for me, though probably don’t need to go in great detail with it. I think that people who had the kind of chemo I did can also be tired for years after, and then there was the bzd w/d. Basically, what I’m trying to communicate is that I struggle with exhaustion, mostly. It also seems all of that did a number to my digestive system, so it appears to be the case that avoiding inflammatory foods can help a lot... though I haven’t been perfect about this.

 

I saw a naturopath and she helped guide me away from dairy and gluten, and has given me INNATE GI Response powder. That seems to help a lot, I got a lot of help from it the first week and still do. I think you’re only supposed to use it up to three months. I am on my second with it, but feel the need to go even more “paleo,” because I think that potatoes and corn tortillas are affecting me, and maybe a few other things I haven’t eliminated yet. The naturopath also has me on INNATE B complex and Nordic Naturals ProDHA 1000 (she has me in 3 of those fish oil capsules so it’s 3,000mg.) And finally, magnesium. I forget how much. These things do help, combined with exercise it does seem like a sort of miracle how if I follow all this (have not done well enough with diet but cutting out dairy and gluten had a big impact initially, then I had Thanksgiving dinner and some other not so good things like sugar and the potatoes I’ve mentioned etc.) how much better I can feel.

 

Sorry about this, it’s getting detailed. And sorry to OP.

 

But basically, I do really well when my digestion and energy are in a “window”— all I’ve mentioned does seem to play in. When I feel physically well I don’t seem to have any mood swings really, the depression disappears along with all the pain and frustration of this experience... it all seems to improve and there seems to be significantly less mental and emotional strife/pain/turbulence even when emotions are coming up to be processed and felt.

 

So I have to say that on those days, which I do have, I feel very normal (in truth.) I basically feel healed. Right now, after diet slip-ups (have to admit how much this impacts me) and a currently pretty painful lower back, I don’t feel too happy. It’s nowhere near what tapering was, I don’t experience the hell of my cns feeling destroyed and under construction like that, in fact I had many windows in my recovery but it was somewhat of a rollercoaster with sometimes physical, mental and emotional symptoms flairing to extremely uncomfortable degrees that were waves. As weird as this is though, after beginning to communicate more clearly about needs, feelings and boundaries and things inside— not constant bottling until I explode— the diet changes and exercise I basically feel very close to normal.

 

I didn’t mean to do this, go on and on, but it’s just not a simple answer for me. I feel like mental, emotional, physical (exercise and diet), and all these things do play in in a way that makes “time the only healer” thinking for me seem innacurate at this point. There are lots of factors, time being the most obvious and necessary for healing, but it is a lot of things.

 

Some days and weeks are really quite great, others and much more painful but nothing like the torture I was in and out of until around mid October of this year. Right now with my back like this and physical self feeling somewhat sick and not great, it’s hard to say that I’m doing really well because that is not what this is feeling like. I know I can’t necessarily blame everything on recovery from

bzds and bzds themselves, but I feel that how they affected my body on a cellular, physical level that is physiological but doesn’t seem very mental at this point (there was extreme muscle pain and other physical elements) is my ongoing battle now, which does end up affecting emotions and mood. I do not generally feel mentally ill or insane the way the w/d can make us feel though... it’s just that some of these physical factors really push me to the limit sometimes and it can be very depressing. Well there is all that and then there is an element in my personal life which complicates things and can be re-traumatizing. It’s very difficult and it’s also helpful and comforting to have this.

 

Much better, but don’t feel “there” to recovered yet, and the re-integration back into life is sometimes the biggest challenge (well combined with the huge effort to heal the cellularly beyond-exhausted, ruined digestive system, delicate lymph system thing.) It’s really a mix.

but I know how people on BB get there little pink panties in a bunch sometimes.

 

Please explain.

 

Anyhow, I don't assume everyone checks back on threads they have posted to.  But re out of court settlements, if an out of court settlement was a further insult to the plaintiff, there may be good reason not to consider it any sort of success.  I've worked with attorneys that have advised clients to accept bread crumbs vs. nothing at all. 

 

Something else that I don't think can be emphasized enough.  If there is an actual good win for a client, one cannot forget the percentage of such win for attorney fees. 

.

 

Personally, I wouldn't call what Mr Montagu got was bread crumbs but, it probably still wasn't enough......

 

As for attorneys.....well, I compare them to another "profession/s" but won't elaborate due to the reprimanding I may suffer from the admin team!

Here is a problem.  This type of suit would take a fair amount of lawyers time and your money.  This isn't an auto accident suite where the lawyer works for free and gets a contingency percentage upon settlement.  The lawyer will likely want money up front and money as it goes along.

 

Another problem is the fact that it is going to be emotionally taxing for you and the opposition will have access to all of your pysch and medical records to question you about.

 

A third problem is that very likely the doctor was following a common medical practice in their prescribing you the medication.

 

Unless the doctor did something very egregious or blatantly wrong, it would be a difficult case.

Here is a problem.  This type of suit would take a fair amount of lawyers time and your money.  This isn't an auto accident suite where the lawyer works for free and gets a contingency percentage upon settlement.  The lawyer will likely want money up front and money as it goes along.

 

Another problem is the fact that it is going to be emotionally taxing for you and the opposition will have access to all of your pysch and medical records to question you about.

 

A third problem is that very likely the doctor was following a common medical practice in their prescribing you the medication.

 

Unless the doctor did something very egregious or blatantly wrong, it would be a difficult case.

 

Nice analysis. Until doctors reorient their profession towards protecting patients rather than facilitating drug sales, most legal cases are going to face extremely long odds.

Here is a problem.  This type of suit would take a fair amount of lawyers time and your money.  This isn't an auto accident suite where the lawyer works for free and gets a contingency percentage upon settlement.  The lawyer will likely want money up front and money as it goes along.

 

Another problem is the fact that it is going to be emotionally taxing for you and the opposition will have access to all of your pysch and medical records to question you about.

 

A third problem is that very likely the doctor was following a common medical practice in their prescribing you the medication.

 

Unless the doctor did something very egregious or blatantly wrong, it would be a difficult case.

 

This is a great summary for why bringing suit may seem like a good idea, but really isn't in most cases. You aren't likely to win a case when the doctor was doing the same thing every other doctor does.

 

The fact that a doctors actions can cause egregious harm and the patient has no recourse is a scary thing, but that's the reality.

Here is a problem.  This type of suit would take a fair amount of lawyers time and your money.  This isn't an auto accident suite where the lawyer works for free and gets a contingency percentage upon settlement.  The lawyer will likely want money up front and money as it goes along.

 

Another problem is the fact that it is going to be emotionally taxing for you and the opposition will have access to all of your pysch and medical records to question you about.

 

A third problem is that very likely the doctor was following a common medical practice in their prescribing you the medication.

 

Unless the doctor did something very egregious or blatantly wrong, it would be a difficult case.

 

This is a great summary for why bringing suit may seem like a good idea, but really isn't in most cases. You aren't likely to win a case when the doctor was doing the same thing every other doctor does.

 

The fact that a doctors actions can cause egregious harm and the patient has no recourse is a scary thing, but that's the reality.

 

This is a great thing about aknowledging realities, then there is something to work from. Even if the reality is something we want to change, it typically can’t be changed until the reality as it stands is aknowledged.

 

From here problems can be solved, but endless postulation on improbabilities is pretty hard to work off of or with.

 

I think and feel that confuseduser summed it up well too, and pointing out the standard of care issue was a key part of this also, along with other contributions.

 

Even with all of this, some individuals will not seemingly be converted to recognizing and admitting to the fact that there is a real problem that affects lives so drastically that thousands are flailing in extreme agony and pain for often prolonged periods (months and years)— very real physiological damage— that could potentially and does, lead to lives being torn apart and even lost.

 

Such people seem to be alright with the status quo, or cannot/do not wish to see what the vast majority of us other individuals do see. It’s unfortunate, but it seems we can either choose as individuals to accept this fact or not. (Obvious.)

 

Not that the victim shaming is right, it’s just that the attempt was made by myself and others to show how there is something wrong with the entire picture of bzds and how they are prescribed, and it seems to have once again fallen on deaf ears. Isn’t that right, builder?

Nice analysis. Until doctors reorient their profession towards protecting patients rather than facilitating drug sales, most legal cases are going to face extremely long odds.

 

Yes. I realize that doctors, just like everyone else, have to earn money for their living. But also, there are ways for them to earn that money and help their patients,  rather than facilitating drug sales and looking at patients as a bag of symptoms and complaints that need to be heavily medicated on a long-term basis.

Nice analysis. Until doctors reorient their profession towards protecting patients rather than facilitating drug sales, most legal cases are going to face extremely long odds.

 

Yes. I realize that doctors, just like everyone else, have to earn money for their living. But also, there are ways for them to earn that money and help their patients,  rather than facilitating drug sales and looking at patients as a bag of symptoms and complaints that need to be heavily medicated on a long-term basis.

 

I understand your frustration with the medical community.  However, as you know BenzoBuddies is not an anti-doctor forum.  While it is fine to talk about one's personal experiences, generalized negative statements is against the rules here. 

 

Please review the forum guidelines below

 

Anti-doctor, Anti-psychiatrist and Anti-medicine

 

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Magrita

 

Here is a problem.  This type of suit would take a fair amount of lawyers time and your money.  This isn't an auto accident suite where the lawyer works for free and gets a contingency percentage upon settlement.  The lawyer will likely want money up front and money as it goes along.

 

Another problem is the fact that it is going to be emotionally taxing for you and the opposition will have access to all of your pysch and medical records to question you about.

 

A third problem is that very likely the doctor was following a common medical practice in their prescribing you the medication.

 

Unless the doctor did something very egregious or blatantly wrong, it would be a difficult case.

 

Nice analysis. Until doctors reorient their profession towards protecting patients rather than facilitating drug sales, most legal cases are going to face extremely long odds.

 

Forget about doctors protecting their patients. Doctors should serve their patients, rather than adopt a paternalistic attitude or push drugs. The correct relationship would be 'the patient is higher, the doctor is lower'.

Here is a problem.  This type of suit would take a fair amount of lawyers time and your money.  This isn't an auto accident suite where the lawyer works for free and gets a contingency percentage upon settlement.  The lawyer will likely want money up front and money as it goes along.

 

Another problem is the fact that it is going to be emotionally taxing for you and the opposition will have access to all of your pysch and medical records to question you about.

 

A third problem is that very likely the doctor was following a common medical practice in their prescribing you the medication.

 

Unless the doctor did something very egregious or blatantly wrong, it would be a difficult case.

 

This is a great summary for why bringing suit may seem like a good idea, but really isn't in most cases. You aren't likely to win a case when the doctor was doing the same thing every other doctor does.

 

The fact that a doctors actions can cause egregious harm and the patient has no recourse is a scary thing, but that's the reality.

 

Not completely true. Especially the American jury system can give a victim recourse. Much better than when doctors just police themselves.

If the law was violated and there is proof, one should stand a chance in such a system.

Nice analysis. Until doctors reorient their profession towards protecting patients rather than facilitating drug sales, most legal cases are going to face extremely long odds.

 

Yes. I realize that doctors, just like everyone else, have to earn money for their living. But also, there are ways for them to earn that money and help their patients,  rather than facilitating drug sales and looking at patients as a bag of symptoms and complaints that need to be heavily medicated on a long-term basis.

 

I think this is a very legitimate concern in the US.  The current system (fee for service) in the US incentivizes more patients and more treatment.  I think we would be well served if the system were to move toward incentivizing positive health outcomes (e.g., pay for performance) instead.