Younger patients are seven times more likely to have a stroke missed than older patients. Dizziness is the symptom most often mistaken for something harmless.

Researchers estimate that up to 200,000 Americans experience a diagnostic error each year, and that between 40,000 and 80,000 of them die as a result. Yet misdiagnosis remains one of the least studied and least tracked problems in patient safety. Not because it doesn't matter, but because it is extraordinarily hard to count.

In this second conversation, Kay Van Wey sits down again with Dr. Matt Austin, a patient safety researcher at Johns Hopkins who is an engineer by training rather than a physician, and who studies why good clinicians arrive at wrong answers. They go deep into the science of diagnostic error: what the literature shows, why stroke is the most commonly missed vascular event, who gets missed most often, and why a patient waiting in an emergency room for an inpatient bed is quietly facing higher odds of a medication error, a delayed order, or worse.

This is not a conversation about bad doctors. It is a conversation about the systems that set doctors and patients up to fail, and about what the research says we can do differently.

Watch Part 1 first: Dr. Matt Austin on why America's healthcare system keeps failing patients — https://youtu.be/A4bi8_-DPeY

WHAT YOU'LL UNDERSTAND BY THE END

1. Why diagnostic error is dramatically undercounted, and what the "iceberg" of misdiagnosis actually looks like
2. How the missing feedback loop in medicine lets a physician repeat the same misdiagnosis for years without ever learning they got it wrong
3. Why "if you hear hoofbeats, think horses" is both good medicine and a leading driver of diagnostic error
4. Why stroke is the most commonly missed vascular event, and why dizziness is the presentation most likely to be dismissed
5. Why younger patients are seven times more likely to have a stroke missed, and why women are more often misdiagnosed than men
6. What ER boarding is, how it differs from ER crowding, and why it produces worse outcomes for the sickest patients
7. How imaging access, neurology availability, and where you happen to live shape whether you get the right diagnosis

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CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

1:45 Welcome Back, Dr. Matt Austin

1:58 The Iceberg Problem: Why Diagnostic Error Is Undercounted

4:01 The Missing Feedback Loop in Medicine 4:34 Cognitive Bias: When Horses Make You Miss the Zebra

6:48 Why Misdiagnosis Is Harder to Study Than Falls or Infections

9:08 Stroke: The Most Commonly Missed Vascular Event

11:52 Who Gets Missed: Women, Younger Patients, Atypical Presentations

14:33 When the Stroke Center Has No Neurologist: Kay's Family Story

19:55 Could AI Perform the HINTS Exam?

20:40 ER Boarding vs. ER Crowding: What's the Difference?

24:39 Why Boarding Leads to Worse Outcomes for Sick Patients

25:33 What's Causing the Boarding Crisis, and What Could Fix It

27:17 Four Days in the ER: What Boarding Did to One Patient

28:50 Coming Next: Black Boxes in the OR and AI in Surgery
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Have you or someone you love been misdiagnosed, or waited in an emergency room for a hospital bed? Tell us in the comments. We read every one.

At Van Wey & Metzler Law Firm in Dallas, Texas, Kay Van Wey and her team advocate for families affected by medical malpractice, hospital negligence, birth injuries, surgical errors, preventable medical harm, and unsafe healthcare systems.

Dr. Matt Austin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-austin-04034114/ Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality: https://www.linkedin.com/company/jhm-armstrong-institute-for-patient-safety-and-quality/ Armstrong Institute on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ7iW30ZHlXcYrXJcUsOooA AdvoKAYte Podcast: https://www.vanweylaw.com/advokayte-podcasts/ Van Wey & Metzler: https://www.vanweylaw.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vanweylaw/

Preventable medical errors affect patients at every stage of life. From the most vulnerable newborns to people in their final days. But the question of who gets harmed and the question of who can actually do anything about it have very different answers.

In this episode, Kay Van Wey delivers one of the most direct conversations this podcast has had about the legal reality facing victims of preventable medical errors: why the courthouse door is effectively slammed shut for 99% of them, what decades of tort reform have actually done to patient rights, and why most people had no idea their rights were being stripped away while they slept.

This episode is for the 1% who have a viable case and need to hear why it matters to pursue it. And it is for the 99% who called every lawyer in town and were turned away, because they deserve an explanation, and they deserve to be angry about it.

By watching this episode you will understand:

1. Why preventable medical errors affect every stage of life and why no patient population is protected
2. Why the courthouse is effectively closed to 99% of victims of preventable medical errors, and what that actually means in practice
3. How decades of tort reform have stacked the legal system in favor of healthcare providers and against patients
4. Why most lawyers won't take a medical malpractice case, and why that is not about laziness or greed
5. Why the 1% with viable cases should pursue litigation even when it feels wrong to do so
6. What the 99% who can't get into court should do instead, and why their anger is the most important force for change
7. Why medical malpractice lawsuits matter beyond money, and how they have changed hospital policies and saved lives

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CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

0:39 Who Is Most Affected by Preventable Medical Errors

1:31 The Bigger Question: Who Can Actually Do Something About It

1:57 How Tort Reform Created a David vs. Goliath Legal System

3:33 Why Medical Malpractice Law Is Not Dead But the Courthouse Mostly Is

4:12 Why 99% of Victims Will Never Find a Lawyer

5:27 If You Are the 1%, Here Is Why You Should Pursue Your Case

7:08 If You Are the 99%, Here Is What to Do With Your Anger

8:44 Why Lawsuits Matter: How Litigation Actually Changes Healthcare

10:17 How to Find a Truly Qualified Medical Malpractice Attorney

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Have you or someone you love tried to find a medical malpractice attorney and been turned away? Tell us your story in the comments.

At Van Wey & Metzler Law Firm in Dallas, Texas, Kay Van Wey and her team advocate for families affected by medical malpractice, hospital negligence, birth injuries, surgical errors, preventable medical harm, and unsafe healthcare systems.

Van Wey & Metzler Instagram: @vanweymetzlerlaw Van Wey & Metzler LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vanweylaw/ Van Wey & Metzler Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vanweymetzlerlaw Learn more about Van Wey & Metzler Law Firm: https://www.vanweylaw.com/ AdvoKAYte Podcast: https://www.vanweylaw.com/advokayte-podcasts/ AdvoKAYte Instagram: @advokaytepodcast AdvoKAYte Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/advokaytepodcast/

Between 300,000 and 400,000 Americans die from preventable medical errors every year. That number has been climbing since the first major studies came out in the 1970s. And yet there is no mandatory reporting requirement for some of the most egregious errors that happen inside hospitals, including operating on the wrong body part, leaving a foreign object inside a patient, or setting a patient on fire in the operating room.

In this episode, Kay Van Wey sits down with her law partner Luke Metzler, a birth injury attorney who has taken depositions across the country and written a scholarly article for the University of North Texas Law Review titled Hospital Negligence and How to Avoid Being the Next Victim, for one of the most substantive conversations this podcast has had about what is actually going wrong inside hospitals, why the system keeps failing patients in the same ways over and over again, and what medical malpractice litigation actually does to make healthcare safer.

By watching this episode you will understand:

1. What the data actually shows about how dangerous hospitals are and why the real number is likely far higher than any study has captured
2. Why there is no mandatory reporting requirement for some of the most serious medical errors in the country
3. Why the aviation industry's approach to safety is the model healthcare refuses to follow
4. Why checklists and timeouts exist for wrong site surgery and why patients still get operated on in the wrong place anyway
5. The most common and preventable causes of birth injuries including HIE and cerebral palsy
6. How medical malpractice litigation drives real systemic change inside hospitals
7. Why the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology publicly stated its goal was to create literature to defend lawsuits and what that means for patients

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CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

2:00 Why Almost Every Medical Error Is a System Failure, Not Just a Bad Doctor

5:00 Luke's Article: Hospital Negligence and How to Avoid Being the Next Victim

6:30 Are Hospitals Actually Dangerous? What Decades of Data Show

12:00 Why We Don't Know the True Number of Preventable Medical Deaths

19:00 Why Hospitals Self-Regulate and Why That Is a Problem

24:00 The Science of Patient Safety and Why It Is Not Being Applied

29:00 Birth Injuries: The Most Common Preventable Causes of HIE and Cerebral Palsy

34:00 What Medical Malpractice Litigation Actually Does to Make Healthcare Safer

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Have you or someone you love been affected by a preventable medical error? Tell us your story in the comments.

At Van Wey & Metzler Law Firm in Dallas, Texas, Kay Van Wey and her team advocate for families affected by medical malpractice, hospital negligence, birth injuries, surgical errors, preventable medical harm, and unsafe healthcare systems.

Van Wey & Metzler Instagram: @vanweymetzlerlaw Van Wey & Metzler LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vanweylaw/ Van Wey & Metzler Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vanweymetzlerlaw Learn more about Van Wey & Metzler Law Firm: https://www.vanweylaw.com/ AdvoKAYte Podcast: https://www.vanweylaw.com/advokayte-podcasts/ AdvoKAYte Instagram: @advokaytepodcast AdvoKAYte Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/advokaytepodcast/

Everyone is talking about the Lindsay Clancy case. Most of the coverage is focused on the criminal trial. But underneath the headlines, there is a medical and legal story that has received almost no attention, and it changes how you understand everything that happened.

In this breaking news segment, Kalee Dionne Pair sits down with medical malpractice attorney Kay Van Wey to break down the civil lawsuit that is running parallel to the criminal case, what the medical malpractice claims actually allege, and what this case reveals about how psychiatric care is, and is not, held accountable in the United States.

By watching this segment you will understand:

1. The difference between the criminal case and the civil medical malpractice lawsuit, and why they are asking completely different questions
2. What the civil lawsuit actually alleges about Lindsay's psychiatric care and why her husband brought it
3. How Lindsay filed her own civil claims and why that is legally more straightforward than it sounds
4. What a jury will actually have to decide about whether the standard of psychiatric care was met
5. Why denying suicidal ideation is not a defense for clinicians who should have seen the full clinical picture
6. What damages could be recovered in Massachusetts versus what would be available in Texas, and why those numbers are very different
7. What Texas tort reform has done to close courthouse doors on cases exactly like this one

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CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

1:45 Criminal Case vs. Civil Case and What Is the Difference

2:30 What the Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Actually Alleges

5:00 How Lindsay Filed Her Own Civil Claims and Why

8:00 How a Jury Decides Whether Psychiatric Care Was Negligent

11:00 Why Denying Suicidal Ideation Is Not Enough of a Defense

12:50 What Recovery Actually Looks Like in Massachusetts vs. Texas

18:00 What Texas Tort Reform Has Done to Patients Like This Family

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If this conversation has raised any questions about your own mental health or the care of someone you love, please pay attention to that. And if you believe a loved one's mental health was mismanaged with devastating consequences, that conversation starts here.

At Van Wey & Metzler Law Firm in Dallas, Texas, Kay Van Wey and her team advocate for families affected by medical malpractice, hospital negligence, birth injuries, surgical errors, preventable medical harm, and unsafe healthcare systems.

AdvoKAYte Podcast: https://www.vanweylaw.com/advokayte-podcasts/ Learn more about Van Wey & Metzler Law Firm: https://www.vanweylaw.com/

Thank you!

If you have ever Googled a doctor before a procedure and felt like you were not getting the full picture, you were right. Hospitals track complication rates, blood loss averages, infection rates, and post-operative outcomes for every physician on staff. They know exactly who their safest surgeons are. That data is legally protected and you will never be allowed to see it.

In this episode, Kalee Dionne Pair puts Kay Van Wey back in the hot seat for a deeper dive on the most alarming moments from Episodes 10 and 11. Kay breaks down what hospitals actually know about your doctor, why the National Practitioner Data Bank exists but is off limits to patients, and what the Dr. Death case revealed about the secrecy that still puts patients at risk today.

By watching this episode you will understand:

1. What hospital data on surgeon outcomes actually looks like and why it is kept from patients and lawyers alike
2. What the National Practitioner Data Bank is and why patients cannot access it
3. Why nurses are often the most honest source of information about a doctor
4. Why your doctor's referral may not mean what you think it means
5. How the Dr. Death patients did their homework and were still actively misled because the right information was locked away

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CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

1:45 The Data Hospitals Have on Every Surgeon That You Will Never See

6:00 Why Patients Cannot Access Their Doctor's Complication Rates

8:30 The National Practitioner Data Bank and Why It Is Off Limits

10:50 Why Nurses Are Your Best Source of Honest Information

12:00 Why Your Doctor's Referral May Not Mean What You Think

13:15 How Dr. Death's Patients Were Misled Despite Doing Their Homework 14:45 Why These Problems Existed Long Before Dr. Death and Still Do
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Have you ever tried to research a doctor before a procedure and hit a wall? Tell us what you found, or didn't find, in the comments.

At Van Wey & Metzler Law Firm in Dallas, Texas, Kay Van Wey and her team advocate for families affected by medical malpractice, hospital negligence, birth injuries, surgical errors, preventable medical harm, and unsafe healthcare systems.

Texas Best Docs: https://texasbestdocs.com/ Instagram: @texasbestdocs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/texas-best-docs/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TexasBestDocs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561142871852 Pair'd Up Social: https://www.pairdupsocial.com/ Instagram: @pairdupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pairdup/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pairdupsocial AdvoKAYte Podcast: https://www.vanweylaw.com/advokayte-podcasts/

If you are trying to figure out how to research your doctor before surgery, most people start with Google, but there is something more important you might be missing entirely. The system that trains and employs your doctor is under more pressure than it has ever been, and understanding that pressure may be the most important thing you can do before you ever sit down in that exam room.

In Part 2 of their conversation, Kay Van Wey sits back down with healthcare insiders Chad Erickson and Barry Howell, the founders of Texas Best Docs, for an honest conversation about physician burnout, private equity in medicine, and what happens to patient care when the business of healthcare puts doctors under impossible pressure.

Nearly 80% of physicians in America are now employed by hospitals, health systems, private equity firms, and even health insurance companies. Chad and Barry explain what that shift means for the doctors treating you, and why a burned-out, overworked physician is one of the most underreported patient safety risks in American healthcare today.

By watching this episode you will understand:

1. Why so many private practices are being bought by private equity and what that means for your care
2. How cuts in reimbursement rates are forcing doctors to see more patients with fewer resources
3. Why a physician employed by a health insurance company may have goals that conflict with your best interest
4. How the financial pressures on independent practices directly connect to patient safety outcomes
5. What reasonable transparency in healthcare could actually look like and why it matters for every patient

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CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

2:00 Why Plaintiff Lawyers and Healthcare Insiders Are Actually on the Same Side

4:45 Why Nearly 80% of Doctors Are No Longer Independent

7:30 What Happens When Private Equity Meets Medicine

11:30 Why Your Doctor May No Longer Have Final Say Over Your Care

15:45 The Independent Physician Is Surrounded — What That Means for You

18:30 The Hidden Cost Disparity Inside Healthcare Nobody Talks About

22:50 Why Burned Out Doctors Are a Patient Safety Crisis Nobody Is Naming

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Have you ever felt rushed through a doctor's appointment or like your physician was stretched too thin? Tell us about it in the comments.

At Van Wey & Metzler Law Firm in Dallas, Texas, Kay Van Wey and her team advocate for families affected by medical malpractice, hospital negligence, birth injuries, surgical errors, preventable medical harm, and unsafe healthcare systems.

Texas Best Docs: https://texasbestdocs.com/ Instagram: @texasbestdocs LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/texas-best-docs/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TexasBestDocs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561142871852 AdvoKAYte Podcast: https://www.vanweylaw.com/advokayte-podcasts/ Learn more about Van Wey & Metzler Law Firm: https://www.vanweylaw.com/

Most patients research their doctor the same way they research a restaurant, they Google it, skim the reviews, and hope for the best.

But online reviews can't tell you if your doctor has been disciplined by the medical board. They can't tell you their complication rates, their readmission rates, or whether other physicians in your community are quietly steering patients away from them. And the data that could tell you all of that? Most of it is locked behind laws that prevent the public from ever seeing it.

In this episode of AdvoKAYte: Holding Healthcare Accountable, host Kay Van Wey sits down with Chad Erickson and Barry Howell two experienced healthcare administrators who have worked inside hospitals and large physician practice groups for an honest conversation about what patients can and cannot find out about their doctors, and what they built to start closing that gap.

Chad and Barry are the founders of Texas Best Docs, a platform designed to give patients and physicians access to factual, objective information about providers, starting with Texas Medical Board actions, without the noise of pay-to-play directories or anonymous reviews.

In this episode, they discuss:

1. Why Google reviews are one of the worst ways to evaluate a physician
2. What Texas Best Docs is, how it works, and how it's different from pay-to-play directories
3. What the Texas Medical Board actually tracks and what its limitations are
4. Why a clean record on the medical board does not necessarily mean a doctor is good
5. The data that hospitals collect on every physician and why patients can never see it
6. What the National Practitioner Data Bank is and why it is off limits to the public
7. How to use CMS hospital data to make more informed decisions about your care
8. The best advice two healthcare insiders have for patients choosing a doctor
9. DocWatch: how to get alerted when your doctor has a new Texas Medical Board action

One of the most striking moments in this conversation is Kay's description of the data that exists inside every hospital, infection rates, complication rates, return-to-OR rates, and the reality that patients will almost certainly never have access to it. As Kay puts it, doctors have a right to privacy, but patients have a right to know if the surgeon they are about to trust has a pattern of outcomes that other surgeons do not.

Kay also explores the uncomfortable truth that even people who work inside the healthcare system, administrators, practice executives, physicians themselves, struggle to get reliable information about the doctors they credential, hire, and refer patients to. The transparency problem is not just a patient problem. It is an industry-wide problem that nobody has fully solved.

But this episode is not about making patients afraid to see their doctors.

It is about building a healthcare system where:

1. Patients have access to real, objective information about their providers
2. Online directories reflect facts, not marketing budgets
3. Physicians are held accountable through data, not just reputation
4. Transparency is treated as a patient right, not a liability risk

Because you cannot make an informed decision about your care with information you are never allowed to see.

At Van Wey & Metzler Law Firm in Dallas, Texas, Kay Van Wey and her team advocate for families affected by:

1. Medical malpractice
2. Hospital negligence
3. Birth injuries
4. Surgical errors
5. Preventable medical harm
6. Unsafe healthcare systems

Listen to more episodes of AdvoKAYte: Holding Healthcare Accountable: https://www.vanweylaw.com/advokayte-podcasts/ Learn more about Van Wey & Metzler Law Firm: https://www.vanweylaw.com/ Subscribe for conversations about: Patient safety, healthcare accountability, medical malpractice, hospital governance, physician burnout, peer review, medical ethics, hospital leadership, and patient advocacy.

Thanks!