Episode 111: Is Your Doctor ‘Going Bare’ Without Insurance? Deirdre Gilbert-Dickson Reveals the Ghastly Horrors of Medical Malpractice [ 1 h 02 min 23 s | 28.56 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (544)

You trust your doctor. And if you don’t, there’s always a way to sue them, isn’t there? Well, not quite.

Deirdre Gilbert-Dickson lost her 22-year-old daughter in what she calls an incident of malpractice. Until it happens to you, you most likely have no idea what you would be up against in that situation.

What are the chances that emergency room staff will have all the information they need? In the event of “mechanical vents” or “brain death,” what rights do the patient – or their family members – have? Whose decision is it, legally, to donate organs, along with when and how? . . . Gilbert-Dickson’s shocking answer to that last one is at 42:17. . . . And what happens if your doctor makes a serious error while “going bare” (see also HERE), that is, practicing without malpractice insurance?

“How Positive Are You” previously featured Kentucky malpractice litigant Bobby Russell (see also HERE) and Washington, D.C., attorney Jonathan Dailey, as mentioned in this Podcast. For background on how much you can trust your “HIV test,” see HPAY co-host Elizabeth (Beth) Ely’s “EDITORIAL: A Special Warning About False-Positive ‘HIV Testing’ Results.”

Our listeners may also wish to click into Dr. Paul A. Byrne’s “Truth About Organ Donation” site for more information on brain death and unauthorized organ donation. Dr. Byrne is a pediatrician, meaning, doctor for children. . . . Yes, this also happens to children.

Beth believes there’s still more to discover and verify with expert sources, but for now . . . have a happy Halloween bwahahahaha!

Deirdre Gilbert-Dickson is the author of Momma Help Me Please, a memoir of her ordeals as the mother of a girl with CHARGE syndrome, a rare condition in which internal organs have developed incompletely in the fetal stage. Her daughter’s death at the hands of emergency doctors unfamiliar with the syndrome led her to research medical malpractice rights and laws. She founded, and now directs, the National Medical Malpractice Advocacy Association in Houston.

(This interview was conducted in June 2016 but published in October 2016. Currently, as of our posting date of October 18, 2016, the NMMAA is holding its “Code Blue Conference” in Galveston, Texas.)