Latest Article Covers Medical Errors and Informed Consent

Between 44,000 and 98,000 patients die each year in the United States due to preventable medical errors, with an associated cost of up to $29 billion. This would make preventable medical errors the country’s eighth-leading cause of death.

Professor Evelyn Tenenbaum cites estimates from several reports and studies in her latest article, continuing to detail how to mitigate the devastating impact of preventable medical errors by strengthening the use of informed consent through better informing patients about their medical procedures so that they can become partners in preventing medical errors. The article, “Using Informed Consent to Reduce Preventable Medical Errors,” will be published in Annals of Health Law, Loyola University Chicago School of Law’s health policy and law review.

Other articles by Professor Tenenbaum that were recently accepted for publication include “Revitalizing Informed Consent and Protecting Patient Autonomy: An Appeal to Abandon Objective Causation” for the Oklahoma Law Review and “Sexual Expression and Intimacy Between Demented Nursing Home Residents: Balancing the Current Interests and Prior Values of Heterosexual and LGBT Residents” for the Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review.

Professor Tenenbaum developed her diverse portfolio of legal expertise through public practice and litigation. Prior to joining the Albany Law faculty, she served in the New York State Attorney General's office as a section chief and assistant solicitor general, and she was also a consultant to the New York State Department of Health.

Professor Tenenbaum has extensive experience handling and supervising health care litigation, including dozens of cases in the federal and state courts, both at the trial level and on appeal. Her high-profile health policy cases covered areas such as mandatory testing for AIDS, guidelines for office-based surgery, state sick-leave policies, the constitutionality of closing bathhouses and reproductive policies at Catholic hospitals.

She was the lead attorney in a class action involving the Social Security Administration's over-reliance on the treadmill exercise test and won class-wide relief entitling class members to disability benefits totaling more than $65 million and saving New York's state and local governments approximately $11 million per year.

Professor Tenenbaum has also handled and supervised dozens of civil rights cases. Her high-profile civil rights cases include a landmark decision upholding the constitutionality of applying the State Labor Relations Act to lay teachers at Catholic Schools.

At Albany Law, she currently teaches Lawyering and Public Health Policy and serves as faculty advisor to the Domenick L. Gabrielli National Family Moot Court Competition. She is also a professor of medical education at Albany Medical College.

She earned her B.A. from Northwestern University and her J.D. from Cornell Law School.