Tampa Personal Injury Blog

A concussion is not the most serious traumatic brain injury, but that doesn't mean it won't affect you in a variety of ways. While most symptoms are temporary, a concussion has the potential to cause pain and discomfort well into the future.

Any type of car accident, even one in which both vehicles are moving slowly, can result in you striking your head. This can cause a concussion, with the most common symptoms including:

• Loss of consciousness
• Feeling of pressure in your head
• Severe headache
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Dizziness
• Slurred speech
• Inability to remember the details of the accident
• Confusion

When you're sick, you rely on your medical providers to give you the best possible care -- and you expect them to be attentive to your condition and needs.

So, what can you do when that doesn't happen? Mistakes do happen in hospitals -- especially when there are shift changes, new trainees on the floor, sleep-deprived doctors and overcrowded waiting rooms. Unfortunately, most patients feel like they're simply at the mercy of the establishment. They wait, hoping someone will eventually focus on their condition long enough to make a difference.

You've probably heard that a physician or surgeon's failure to get a patient's informed consent before a procedure is grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit when something goes wrong with a treatment or procedure -- but what about times when a physician fails to get a patient's informed refusal?

Informed consent and informed refusal are flip sides of the same coin. They serve the exact same purpose: They both seek to document the fact that the physician or surgeon took the time to explain to the patient his or her medical options.

Is your teen learning how to drive this summer or perhaps next school year? If so, your time with them as they get experience behind the wheel will be just as important -- if not more so -- than the time they'll be spending with their driver's ed instructor.

Parents can be good -- or poor -- examples for their kids long before they're old enough to take the wheel themselves. Even if you haven't been the best role model for safe driving in the past, it's not too late to turn that around so that you're teaching them the same driving behaviors you display --such as keeping your cellphone off.