Damages: One Family's Legal Struggles in the World of Medicine
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| Damages: One Family's Legal Struggles in the World of Medicine | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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When Donna Sabia went into labor on April 1, 1984, she was expecting healthy twins. Instead, one baby was stillborn-and the other just barely clung to life. Caring for their son would exhaust the Sabias emotionally, financially, and physically, and put a nearly lethal strain on their marriage-but after deciding that a lawsuit might bring them some relief, they discovered that what it brought was a seven-year-long maelstrom of conflict, stress, and further expense. This examination of the Sabia family's story brings us not only into their lives but into the lives of the doctors, lawyers, insurance carriers, and countless other players in this heartrending tale of human sorrow which is also, in the words of The San Francisco Chronicle, "a disturbing biopsy of a system in serious need of an overhaul."
Here is the book that A Civil Action fans have been waiting for. --Praised for its "meticulous detail" (San Diego Union Tribune), Damages is already being used in law-school courses --A timely, serious, evenhanded book that gives a human face to the health-care crisis --Takes readers behind the scenes of both the legal and medical professions |
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On April 1, 1984, Donna Sabia went into labor expecting twins. But one of the babies arrived stillborn, while the other--Anthony Jr.--was barely alive, with an Apgar score (rating newborn vitality on a scale of 0 to 10) of 1. In the following years, he suffered from spastic quadriplegia, cerebral palsy, and cortical blindness, and would require lifelong medical attention costing millions of dollars just to survive. The Sabias' lawyers faulted Donna's maternity clinic and the delivering physician for her son's condition, initiating a 7-year lawsuit on the claim that a simple $40 ultrasound could have eliminated incalculable suffering and catastrophic expense.
Damages is a careful analysis of how the fields of law and medicine intersect in the realm of medical malpractice, where lawyers sue not only to redress suffering but to make sure that doctors and hospitals are more vigilant in the future, if only to avoid being sued again. Werth leads readers carefully through the litigation, from the deposing of expert witnesses, through the preparation for trial, to the posturing of settlement negotiations. Always firmly aware that lawyers sue doctors on behalf of human beings, however, he reveals the emotional and psychological consequences of a civil justice system that is often neither civil nor just. Werth explains esoteric legal and medical procedures in understandable terms that laypeople will not find condescending, while describing the human side of the Sabias' case without patronizing attorneys and physicians. Ultimately, Damages is the chronicle of a devoted family braving a medical malpractice industry in which the decision-making process on both sides is governed by a cost-benefit analysis that leads, perhaps inevitably, to the commodification of human life. "Even after a big verdict," Werth quotes one malpractice lawyer, "I'm suffering because all I could get my clients, who've been brutalized by the most appalling malpractice, was money." --Tim Hogan |
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| Reader Reviews 1 - 8 of 8 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Reader Reviews Below Sorted by Newest First | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 06-09-05 | 5 | 1\1 |
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I am a college student studying to be a medical assistant. I had to write an essay on a specific medical lawsuit for my class "Medical Law and Ethics." I have not read a nonfiction book in years, but once I started reading this book I could not put it down. It is so stimulating, exciting, and brilliant. Mr. Werth had little to work with since there was no court room drama. He did a spectacular job with the resources he had. He is indeed an intelligent writer. I wish him well.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2008-08-20 06:25:30 EST)
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| 02-13-03 | 5 | 4\4 |
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This is a wonderful book for anyone involved in the litigation process or anyone involved in the health care field.
I am a structured settlement consultant who works with personal injury attorneys and some insurance companies. This is the best book I have ever seen about the process. I have purchased over 200 copies of the book to give to trial attorneys, claims professionals and other structured settlement professionals. All love the book. It reads like a novel. Don McNay... (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-06 06:25:45 EST)
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| 07-22-99 | 5 | 6\16 |
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I'm a medical doctor embroiled in a battle to expose a corrupt insurance company engaged in racketeering. I think (and have been told) that this is a story that needs telling. There are lots of twists and turns, corporate and government cover-ups, some drama, many sympathetic characters in the form of other victims of the abuses of this company, and lots of anguish. Thousands are suffering and some committing suicide because of the actions of this company. It will take me years to get to court, if that is even possible. Except for the Internet contacts I've made and a few friends, I am working practically alone. The legal profession has all but abandoned the public and their actions in covering these crimes up with confidentiality agreements, for those who can even afford lawyers, is allowing it to continue and worsen and spread, like a cancer.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-06 06:25:45 EST)
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| 06-11-99 | 5 | 2\5 |
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This is a wonderfully written and wonderfully worthwhile look into the healthcare and legal communities...it is a book that you won't be able to put down. The characters are well presented and you will find "knowing" them will enrich your own life.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-01-16 06:51:48 EST)
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| 06-05-99 | 5 | 4\5 |
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"Damages" by Barry Werth is a compelling and incisive study of the anatomy of a medical malpractice case, as seen from all sides. A real page turner. Most impressive is the exhaustive and comprehensive work done by the plaintiff's legal firm, and the in depth and understandable explanations by the author of the medical facts, the legal strategies, the context of the times, the world of medical experts, the role of insurance companies, and the lives of those injured. Beautifully written. "An education" is the only phrase that keeps coming to my mind after completing this gem of a book. Read it ! You'll learn a lot and it will help you.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-07-06 06:25:45 EST)
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| 02-17-99 | 4 | 0\9 |
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I miss you Alex..
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-01-16 06:51:48 EST)
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| 07-29-98 | 5 | 16\18 |
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I spend a great deal of time as a defense lawyer explaining how the system works-- to the associates in my office, to clients, to lawyers from outside the US. "Damages" is going to find its way into a lot of these discussions, and everyone who works for me is going to read it. I am also going to send a copy to my mom.
Barry Wirth's book is impressive for the way it gets the law stuff (and the medicine too, I think) mostly dead on, but beyond that, this is also a great read, with interesting, well drawn characters that one ends up caring about. In many ways, "Damages" is a better book than "A Civil Action", which it resembles. The legal tactics are explained, rather than merely used to illustrate the flamboyance of the attorneys. More importantly, the case itself, a so-called "bad baby" case concerning the catastrophic injuries sustained as a result of claimed medical malpractice, is something anyone who reads a daily newsp! aper will be able to relate to. The book gives the best picture I have ever seen of how patients become clients, how prospective clients are screened by law firms, how discovery strategies are developed, how cases are evaluated (by both sides) and how settlements are negotiated. I could teach a course around this, and, in fact, I just might. I recommend this book to anyone who has ever wondered how the damage awards they read about in news reports were arrived at, or thought about what the human consequences of a serious injury might be. (Review Data Last Updated: 2006-01-16 06:51:48 EST)
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| 06-24-98 | 3 | 3\4 |
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This "You are there" look at a major medical malpractice case brought on by the birth of a severely brain damaged child is true to the Jonathan Harr "A Civil Action" format. The reader enters the psyche of the major players -- the heroically struggling working class parents, the true believer personal injury lawyer, the unjustly sacrificed physicians, the mercenary hospital staff, and the bottom line insurance company. One senses the absurdity and inefficiency of our current system of compensating families of bad outcome babies, yet a better book might have explored some solutions or considered a more rational, saner way to go about remedying these dire situations. Lacking the passion and rage of Harr's A Civil Action, the book sometimes collapses under the weight of all the details and changes in strategies. That being said, Damages still offers a thorough and informative look at a protracted legal battle in which no one, except perhaps the Sabia family, comes out looking very good.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2006-01-16 06:51:48 EST)
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