Legal Nurse; This and That

Commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the First Six Ecumenical Councils; St. Macrina, sister of St. Basil the Great; St. Dius, abbot of Antioch; Opening of thr Relics of St. Seraphim of Sarov; Blessed Romanus, prince of Ryazan; Blessed Stephen, king of Serbia and his mother St. Militsa; St. Paisius of the Kiev Caves; NewMartyr Victor, bishop of Glazov (1934).
[Greek Calendar: Abba Diocles of The Paradise]
Repose of Blessed Abbot Nilus (1870); Elder John of St. Nilus of Sora Monastery
(1903), and Hieroschemamonk Anthony of Valaam (1862).

Holy Saints pray to the Lord for us!

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The ol' curmudgeon spent the entire day yesterday re-doing my laptop - I finally "gave in" and asked him to put XP on it. Now I have to spend most of today re-doing all my settings, downloading all the little utilities I love so much, etc. The ol' curmudgeon wants me to run all those utils past him - says I won't need most of them on XP. That's nice. XP is taking up so much of my hard drive space I'm gonna have to upgrade the dratted harddrive - which means redoing this again in a few weeks.

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I'm tired of feeling tired and aching. Other than the fibromyalgia and the arthritis, I feel wonderful and I have many things I want to do and just cannot. So I end up spending time on the computer and reading. At least it gives me the opportunity to read the Church Fathers and various theological works, and I end up praying a lot more than I used to. Not being able to get to and through the Divine Liturgy is a real drag, but Father brings the Holy Gifts about once a month, and I can listen to the Liturgy on the various CDs I've found and ordered on the WEB. The Greek Church has a streaming video of the Liturgy each week, but I really, really wish there were on from one of the ROCA Churches. In English. That would be marvelous.

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Well I have 3 cases subcontracted from another company, and I need to get them done by Friday. Time to comment about medical malpractice. As a person who reviews several hundred potential medical malpractice cases each year, I am constantly astonished at the total lack of communication between medical personnel (not just doctors, but nurses, physical therapists, dentists, etc) and patients and their families.

One of the problems is that medicine is not an exact science - despite what is shown on the medically-related shows on TV! Bad things happen to nice people because of the inherent risks of certain procedures and diseases.

I recently reviewed a case involving a very aggressive type of cancer - it has one of the poorest prognoses of any of the cancers. The patient died about 6 months after diagnosis. The family wanted to sue because the patient had complained of one symptoms that might or might not have been related to the cancer 1 month prior to the diagnosis, and alleged that if the cancer had been diagnosed a month earlier the patient would not have died. Sorry! It doesn't work like that. For the vast majority of cancers (with a very, very few, rare exceptions) a month or even 2 or 3 months delay in diagnosis will not affect the ultimate outcome. It might affect longevity by about the same length of time as the delay. But the family in this case didn't understand. They were sad and angry, upset and wanted to blame someone - anyone - other than their loved one.

People, there are risks to all things in our lives. We must understand that. There are no guarantees! That is why we are admonished so much by the Church Fathers to be prepared for we know not when the day will come that we will die - and will we be prepared?

I'm not saying that there are not cases of gross negligence. There are, and I've reviewed many of them. I have no problem suggesting trial strategies for these cases. But to sue a doctor for something he had no control over? I think that is totally outside the bounds of civilized behavior.

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Someone was talking about the McDonald's coffee case the other day. This was a personal injury case that occurred in 1994. Most people don't realize that the injured party was not driving the car, and that the car was at a standstill when the accident with the coffee occurred.

McFacts abut the McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit

This website has all the true facts about the McDonald's Coffee Lawsuit. Check it out and decide for yourself if McDonald's was culpable. There are a number of other websites that address the facts of this case.

I wish that people could see the two extremes that I see - the people trying to get something for nothing, and the people who only want recompense for things that happened because of gross negligence on the part of others who should have known better. There is such a difference between the two!

Elizabeth