In any medical malpractice, wrongful death, personal injury, car accident, truck accident, or environmental hazard case, it is important to have an experienced and passionate team of lawyers that can interpret the legal issues in the case. And it is just as important to have a team of medical professionals that have practical experience in nursing and medicine who can:
- help clients understand their medical prognosis or ongoing issues;
- interpret complex medical issues;
- evaluate whether medical providers breached the standard of care expected;
- review medical records; and
- consult with expert witnesses.
Here at Plakas Mannos, we are fortunate to have an experienced medical team on staff. Our physician medical analyst and registered nurse law clerk wade through medical issues, provide insight on the inner workings of healthcare, and advocate for patient rights and wellbeing.
We’ve previously posted about our staff physician and Medical Analyst, Dr. Allison Kreiner, and the invaluable work she does for our team.
Garrett Loyd is our firm’s Registered Nurse Law Clerk. Garrett works closely with our clients, ensuring they are fully informed, and understand the medical aspects of their case. Garrett has extensive experience as a registered nurse, having practiced in academic medical centers as both an ICU nurse and heart transplant coordinator for over six years before returning to the University of Akron to attend law school. Garett’s unique professional experiences in healthcare combined with his legal knowledge make him an asset to our firm’s team and the clients we serve.
Who is Garrett?
Garrett was born and raised in a small town in Southern Illinois, where he graduated from John A. Logan College with an Associates of Applied Science Degree in nursing and an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) certificate. While in nursing school Garrett worked for a local EMS agency and in the emergency room as an EMT.
After completing nursing school, and obtaining his RN license, Garrett moved to Northeast Ohio where he obtained a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree from American Sentinel University and worked as a staff and charge nurse in the neurological ICU of a local academic medical center. Later, Garrett worked with organ donors, evaluating organs for transplant and placing them with recipients. He then worked as heart transplant coordinator and thoracic transplant preservationist, caring for both patients who had received heart transplants and those who were waiting for transplant.
In 2021, Garrett decided to return to law school at the University of Akron School of Law to pursue his passion of improving healthcare in the United States. Garrett studied while continuing to work full-time with a healthcare biotechnology company that provided diagnostic tests for transplant patients. Garrett joined Plakas Mannos in March 2024 and he plans to graduate from the University of Akron in December.
Garrett is passionate about patient rights and making a positive impact on our healthcare system by improving safety, reducing medical errors, and addressing disparities in healthcare and social determinates of health. Garrett’s experience in transplant has also made him passionate about improving organ donation and transplantation system to reduce the shortage of organs, eliminate waste, and make distribution of these life-saving organs safer and more equitable.
From Patient Advocacy to Client Advocacy
One thing nursing has in common with the law is advocacy. Registered nurses are patient advocates first and foremost. Registered nurses are responsible for safeguarding patient rights, standing up for their interests and ensuring they receive the highest possible level of care. Similarly, lawyers must be ardent advocates for their clients and act with commitment and dedication to their client’s interests.
The thing that led Garrett to law school was the desire to make a larger impact in society and to address systemic issues in our healthcare system. While as a nurse, Garrett advocated for his patients, but his impact on the healthcare system as a whole was mostly limited to the patients in his care. Garrett realized that by going to law school he could continue to represent individual patients who are victims of medical negligence or our broken healthcare system, and also address systemic flaws in patient care through his advocacy.
In Garrett’s words: “The work we do for our clients is fulfilling because we are not only helping the individual and their family, but also helping improve the delivery of healthcare in our community by driving changes in policy, improving patient protections through law and regulation, and bringing awareness to issues that are detrimental to the health of our communities.”
Understanding Medical Practices and Context
Garrett’s experience as a registered nurse is extremely beneficial as it relates to understanding what is documented in medical records, spotting red flags, and identifying critical details that may not be obvious to those without practical experience in the medical field. Garrett explains how his experience as a registered nurse impacts his work at Plakas Mannos:
My professional experience as a registered nurse allows me to identify deviations from usual nursing and medical care that could be indicative of deviations from standard medical practices. It’s also extremely beneficial to have another healthcare provider in the firm to discuss complex medical issues with. Dr. Allie and I have different experiences in healthcare, and I think we really work with each other’s strengths. For example, I tend to be a bit more focused on the nursing care aspect and the policies and procedures that medical facilities have in place to keep patients safe; while as a physician, Dr. Allie tends to have more of a focus on the care provided by physicians and surgeons. We also have experience in different fields, whereas my experience is primarily in emergency and intensive care, neurology, cardiology, and transplant; Dr. Allie, as an OB/GYN, is much more experienced with women’s health, pregnancy, childbirth, and surgery. The diversity in our experiences make us a strong team and together we can thoroughly evaluate the complex medical questions our clients bring us.
Our team’s medical experience is also extremely beneficial in facilitating effective communication with medical experts and reviewing medical records. Garrett knows the right questions to ask experts to ensure we get the best possible results for our clients. Garrett’s familiarity with medical jargon allows him to efficiently discuss complicated medical procedures or conditions with experts and translate those discussions into terms that are understandable to the rest of the legal team and to juries.
Building a Strong Medical Argument and Developing Legal Strategies Informed by Nursing Experience
Garrett’s deep understanding of our healthcare system, and his legal education allows him to work with our team of experienced attorneys to develop robust arguments that are both legally and medically sound. Garrett’s clinical experiences help our team formulate pertinent questions to ask healthcare providers at depositions and trial. Garrett’s familiarity with healthcare practices also allows our team to identify discoverable documentation, policies, audit data, and other items relevant to our client’s case. By leveraging clinical and legal knowledge Garrett and our team can highlight specific acts of medical negligence and develop a clear and convincing case for how a healthcare provider’s actions—or inactions—resulted in patient harm.
Explaining causation and linking medical negligence to patient outcomes is another area where having an experienced nurse on our team proves invaluable. Garrett’s firsthand clinical experience allows him to understand what medical care a patient requires as a result of an injury, evaluate their medical damages, and clearly demonstrate how specific actions led to adverse outcomes. He also evaluates client injuries and draws links between those injuries and the medical negligence, car crash, or the environmental hazard the client faced. Garrett’s ability to draw direct connections between negligence and patient injury helps our team clarify complicated and confusing medical issues for judges and juries in court, and most importantly, obtain justice for our clients.
Take Advantage of What Our Medical Experts Can Do for You
With Dr. Allie and Garrett on our team, you know that Plakas Mannos will make sure that you are getting the best to handle your case. If you have a medical-related case that needs the best legal team, reach out to our attorneys today.
Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!
