Brain Injury Lawyer - New York

Congratulations to BrainLine

Congratulations to BrainLine  for  receiving the Best in Class Award, the highest award in the Health/Nutrition Category, from Interactive Media Council, Inc. The IMC recognizes excellent web design and development with their Interactive Media Awards.

Over the last several years, my partner, brain injury lawyer, Shana De Caro and I have worked with BrainLine to provide information to persons facing the legal hurdles of traumatic brain injury.  We are honored to be part of their ask the expert series and look forward to contributing more articles in the next year.

BrainLine is a national multimedia project offering information and resources about preventing, treating, and living with TBI. BrainLine includes a series of webcasts, an electronic newsletter, and an extensive outreach campaign in partnership with national organizations concerned about traumatic brain injury.

BrainLine is funded by the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, the Primary Operational TBI Component of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, through a subcontract award with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine.

Abusive Head Trauma-Shaken Baby Syndrome Conference

A conference to explore head trauma and shaken baby syndrome as well as other head injuries caused by assaults on children has been announced by the office of the Queens District Attorney.

The head trauma conference is scheduled to take place on Monday, September 21, 2009 at the offices of the New York City Medical Examiner, 421 East 26th street from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

The topics scheduled to  be covered include:

• Forensic controversies in abuse head trauma
• Neuropathology of lethal child abuse
• Non-accidental injury from the pediatric neurosurgical perspective
• Retinal hemorrhages and their relationship to shaken baby syndrome
• A view of fatal head injury from the standpoint of a forensic medical examiner

You can obtain more information on the conference by clicking here.

How is long term disability following brain damage determined by the CDC

Understanding the Prevalence of Long-Term Disability Following Traumatic Brain Injury   

-How many traumatic brain injuries occur each year?
-What are the statistics for people living with long-term disabilities after TBI?
-How is this data gathered, and why have the numbers changed in the last few years?

BrainLine advisor Jean Langlois Orman, ScD, MPH (Scientific Program Manager for Brain Injury Rehabilitation Research and Development Service at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) wrote "How Is the Prevalence of Long- Term Disability Counted," a short article that explains the processes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention use to collect this type of information - available online at  BrainLine.

Deadline extended for The George Washington University Master's Brain Injury Certification Program

I have been requested to forward the following announcement from The George Washington University Graduate Acquired Brain Injury Certification Program.  I have been honored to be a guest lecturer at this program for the past several semesters and have viewed first hand what a great program they offer.

The George Washington University, in Washington D.C., offers graduate level programs for professional preparation in brain injury and has been a leader in this field since 1992.  Ourprograms are fully accredited by the National Council on Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and highly ranked by the Council on Exceptional Children (CEC).

We have extended our deadline and are currently accepting applications for limited spaces remaining for the fall, 2009 semester in the following programs:

1.  Master's Degree in Transition Special Education with emphasis in Acquired Brain Injury (42-48 credits) offered at the main campus only; 2.  Graduate Certificate in Brain Injury: Educational and Transition Services (15 credits) offered at the main campus; and 3. Graduate Certificate in Brain Injury: Educational and Transition Services (15 credits) offered by distance education for those participants living 50 miles or more from Washington D.C.

All programs have federal grant funding for tuition support available to qualified applicants, pending approval from the U.S. Department of Education.

For further information, contact:
1.  Monija Amani, Project Director for the Graduate Certificate program, at  202-973-1032 
2.  Dr. Zavolia (Zee) Willis, Project Director for the Master's Degree program, at 202-973-108 or

Limiting Malpractice Law Suits Will Not Fix Nation's Health Care Crisis

Our nation's health care system is a mess.  Those who work with injured individuals on a daily basis are well aware of the frustrations that our clients have in obtaining health care that is both readily available to them and affordable.  Insurance companies constantly are throwing up road blocks to accessing medical care.  We need health care reform and we need it now. Those who are victims of brain injury know the difficulties they have in getting proper rehabilitation care and the arbitrary limits that health care insurers place upon treatment.  Those who have sustained brain damage as a result of medical errors, know that they are entitled and deserving of full compensation for their injuries, disabilities and loss of earnings.

Health care reform however should not be confused with medical malpractice deform and proposals to link changes in the medical malpractice compensation system with health care reform should be disregarded as ill founded and without merit in attempting to solve our health care crisis.

The following guest editorial from the president of the American Association for Justice is reprinted here for your review. 

The health care crisis is one of the most complex issues facing our country. Ultimately, a national solution will boil down to two major tenets: lowering costs while improving quality, and covering the uninsured.

Changing the legal system will not solve any of these problems. Doing so will only make it harder for patients injured by medical negligence, through no fault of their own, to pursue legal recourse.

Discussing negligence as part of health care reform is a distraction from the debate. Numerous studies and economic experts, such as the Government Accountability Office and Congressional Budget Office, have detailed how tampering with the legal system will save health care practically no money. One study showed that medical negligence lawsuits were a tiny percentage of civil cases.

Fixating on the legal system ignores the larger issue: patient safety. As many as 98,000 people die every year because of medical errors. If medical negligence becomes rarer, so will the number of injured patients who need to seek legal recourse.

A few hospitals are using programs that encourage doctors to disclose errors and apologize to injured patients as a way to avoid litigation. As long as there are strict protocols to protect the legal rights of patients, these programs offer compelling ways to foster openness and defuse what is often an emotional and difficult experience. Even so, these programs are not one-size-fits-all. For patients injured by clear negligence, saying "I'm sorry" does not repair physical disfigurement or relieve pain and suffering. Proper compensation must be provided.

Any "reform" that makes it more difficult for injured patients to seek legal recourse is unacceptable. Alternatives such as health courts not only deny people their guaranteed right to trial by jury, but they also nonsensically create a whole new bureaucracy to accommodate just one select profession.

Limiting the legal rights of patients will do nothing to provide insurance coverage or lower health care costs. Eliminating errors and keeping patients safe will most certainly accomplish these goals. And this is something all of us can support.

The brain injury attorneys and medical malpractice attorneys at the New York law firm of De Caro & Kaplen, LLP support changes in our health care system without limiting patient right's to sue for full and fair compensation.

Could TV Pitchman, Billy May's Sudden Death Be Caused By A Traumatic Brain Injury?

TV Pitchman Biilly May, suddenly passed away on Sunday.  Word is spreading that on Saturday, while on board an airplane, he struck his head after the plane's tires blew out during a rough landing. 

Sounds similar to the fate of Natasha Richardson who also died suddenly after she struck her head.

The condition causing these sudden deaths is termed, "talk and die" syndrome.  What is implied by this terms is that someone hits their head and seems to initially be OK, but due to a rapid accumulation of blood, called epidural hemorrhage (bleeding between the skull and the brain), their are serious pressure changes within the brain, leading to death. 

The take away message is that any head injury must be taken seriously.  The individual experiencing the head trauma needs to checked out by qualified medical personnel to determine if the head injury requires treatment.

Urge Congress to Support the Principles of the Brain Injury Healthcare Reform Pledge

The following request has been received from the Brain Injury Association of America:

 The Brain Injury Association has embarked on what may be the most important advocacy effort in our 29-year history. President Obama and the U.S. Congress are undertaking a comprehensive overhaul of our nation's healthcare system and the discussions on what to include in the legislation are happening now. BIAA is committed to influencing this policy making for the benefit of the brain injury community.
 
Help us make sure that people with brain injury have access to the care that they so desperately need and deserve. Please contact your Senators and Representatives in Congress to urge them to sign a pledge in support of the healthcare reform principles benefitting individuals with brain injury.

A message of support for our care givers

The following message was prepared by Lee Woodruff. She has shared some very poingnant thoughts that need repeating. Please share this message with your friends.

Memorial Day is on the horizon and for most of us, it¹s a blessed three-day weekend where we can sleep in, char something on the BBQ and relax with our friends.

But for the one in four people in this country who are caregivers, people parenting their parents or dealing with a sick, injured or disabled loved one, Memorial Day may not be any break at all. For the wounded Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who have returned home,more than 320,000 of them with some form of a brain injury, one day is mostly like the next, which bleeds into the next. There are very few
opportunities for a break.

Memorial Day is supposed to be a day to pay tribute to the troops, to step back and honor those who have served their country. But for most of us, it¹s a three-day weekend. Somehow in America, we have moved from the Greatest Generation in WWII to the dishonored generation in Vietnam --- ask a Vietnam vet sometime how he was welcomed home from the war. "They threw rocks at me in the parade," I
vividly recall one vet telling me. And now in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan, we don¹t quite know what to do with this generation of veterans.

In the present wars, we seem to be there on the surface as a country, but not for the long haul. We shake their hands or smile when we spot a solider in uniform at an airport. And then we go back to our lives, to our schedules, to our jobs and to our homes. And all the while, as we move ever forward, enjoy a moment of repose for ourselves, scattered throughout the country is the caregiver. She is changing the adult diapers on her bedridden marine son, bucking up her amputee husband. He is welcoming home a
daughter who may scream out from nightmares in her sleep. This Memorial Day weekend those caregivers won¹t get a break.

I will always remember the look of the marine¹s wife in Texas who had to be put into a safe house after her childhood sweetheart had tried to strangle her for the third time in her sleep. I¹ve thought many times since then about the courage it must have taken for her to leave with the kids, the energy she had spent caring for his emotional wounds and then trying to make it "all right" for her children. Who is caring for her?

Most of the attention is focused on the patient in any given medical crisis or difficult situation. We often forget to think about the families and the people caring for them. The caregiver is often referred to as the unsung hero. But they are also the hidden clients in any medical situation. They are the incidental
victims, slowly ground down by the fatigue of caring for a loved one, often at the expense of his or her own health. And if you think that caregiving doesn¹t apply to you, chances are it does. It was Roselyn Carter who said that there are four kinds of people in the world, those who are caregivers, those who have been caregivers, those who will be and those who will need one.

I¹d like to propose that we all pause and honor those who have so bravely served their country this Memorial Day, both in the present wars and in those that have come before. Maybe you¹re not a military person or you don¹t agree with the war. I certainly understand that.

But let¹s take the politics out of it for a second. Supporting our veterans is simply not a political issue. It doesn¹t matter whether you are for or against this war. What we all have to do is separate the war from the warrior. Our veterans and service members are the only ones who have been asked to sacrifice after Sept 11th. We need to support those who have raised their hands to go overseas and have come home different, injured, wounded. And we need to support those who are caring for them.

So how do you help? Well‹you can sign up to twitter this Memorial Day. And while you are grilling or at a sports event or sitting at a beach this coming holiday weekend, twittering to your friends, you can help a veteran and their family. Think of it like a nationwide car wash for a good cause.

I'll be tweeting my little head off about my chicken apple sausage or the kids fighting over the remote control or the fact that no one is helping me walk the dog. I can¹t imagine anyone cares a clipped hangnail about my new underwear purchase at Target - but if it goes to a good cause, hey, just
watch me tweet my stuff.

Would you give a dollar to someone who risked their life for you? Now you can. The Bob Woodruff Foundation, is harnessing the power of Twitter over Memorial Day so that every time you tweet about the ballgame or your plans for the BBQ, a dollar goes to a wounded veteran who has served their country. The goal is to raise a dollar for each of the 1.65 million service members who have cycled through Iraq and Afghanistan. The money goes to local support services and resources to assist their recovery from
the physical and psychological wounds of war.

Thanks to my new friends at twitter, it couldn¹t be easier this coming Memorial Day. All you have to do is log on click here. tweettoremind.org/

Congratulations to Dr. Wayne Gordon

Congratulations to Dr. Wayne A. Gordon, Professor of Neuropsychology at New York City's Mt. Sinai Hospital School of Medicine, this year's recipient of the Robert L. Moody Prize for Distinguished Initiatives in Brain Injury Research and Rehabilitation.  

I have had the privlege of knowing and working with Dr. Gordon for many years and can think of no better recipient for this award. The award recognizes Dr. Gordon's brain injury research, clinical care and his advocacy for people who are severely injured.  Dr. Gordon has demonstrated unflagging commitment to improving the lives of individuals with brain injury and supporting their family members in the process.
 
Dr. Gordon is the Jack Nash Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.  Since 1991 he has been Associate Director, Chief Psychologist and Co-Director of Research in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center.  He is principal investigator of three federally funded grants, including the Mount Sinai Injury Control Research Center supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Dr. Gordon is also PI for the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Traumatic Brain Injury Interventions funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) . 

He is a tireless advocate for the field of TBI rehabilitation and for individuals with disabilities and their families.  Through research, development of innovative treatments, and advocacy, Dr. Gordon has advanced the scientific understanding and care of persons with TBI.
 

New Traumatic Brain Injury Policy Position to Open in New York State

As a result of the recent grant received by the State of New York for the improvement of services to victims of traumatic brain injury, a new position has been created fwith the New York State Department of Health for the administration of this grant.

Here is the announcement from the the Centers for Health Reseach:  Please remember that the filing deadline is May 8th

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Coordinator, P25 (T050P)
Apr. 24, 2009 - May. 08, 2009

Location: Albany, NY

Salary Range: $70,932/yr - $86,700/yr, commensurate with experience

Type: Full Time

Department: Office of Long Term Care

Description: Application and resume must be received by: May 8, 2009. To apply, please visit the health research web site. 

Duties: The TBI Coordinator will be the lead in creating a coordination function for TBI activities within New York. The incumbent will: Develop, enhance and expand working collaborations among the State’s many TBI-related programs and advocacy and provider stakeholders; Coordinate all HRSA grant-supported and administrative activities, including completion of a statewide needs assessment and production of a NYS TBI Action Plan; Manage and oversee all contractual activities for public education and outreach efforts; Assist in improving access to care, including increasing public awareness, improving quality assurance and developing training materials; Serve as staff to the Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordination Council (TBISCC) and effectively engage the TBISCC as an advisory body to the grant; Work with the Bureau of Injury Control to update and publish incidence and prevalence TBI data.

Qualifications:
Minimum Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree in an appropriate field and fours years of experience in the area of services to individuals with disabilities, health care, or other support services. Excellent verbal and organizational skills. Preferred Qualifications: Master’s degree in an appropriate field and extensive experience in traumatic brain injury policy and programs.
 
Conditions of Employment: Grant funded position. AA/EOE/M/W/D/V NO PHONE CALLS, ELECTRONIC INQUIRIES, OR FAXES ACCEPTED