Tonight I went to an educational session offered by my malpractice insurer -- an annual workshop designed to teach physicians to protect ourselves against medical malpractice suits. They present case after case of terrible medical outcomes or unfortunate medical errors. We all leave with a sense of heaviness and dread.
The disturbing thing about listening to someone else’s malpractice case is the dark and creepy feeling of “there but for the grace of God go I.” None of the doctors in this evening’s cases were evil or even indifferent. Their charts made it clear that they were conscientious and knowledgeable. They tried to heal their patients, but instead things went horribly wrong.
Each time the presenter got to the bad part of the story – the negative outcome – the room full of physicians collectively groaned. I’ll bet we all flashed to our friends, or even ourselves, who have faced the hell of a malpractice suit. I, thankfully, have never been sued. (Can you hear me knocking on wood?) But I know that it could happen at any moment.
I have heard people, both patients and friends, say things like “doctors don’t care if they get sued because they have insurance for that.” Nothing could be farther from the truth.
My friends who have been sued describe the ordeal as life altering. Tears, sleepless nights, anxiety attacks, and depression are common themes. It is devastating to try your best to help someone and end up hurting them instead. Doctors carry tremendous guilt and self-doubt when they make a medical mistake. A malpractice suit compounds their self-flagellation with risk of financial ruin and public humiliation, which can drag on for years. For physicians who feel unfairly blamed, the predominant emotions are often anger and fear. “I told her to go for a colonoscopy and she didn’t go. So why is it my fault that she got cancer?!”
All physicians who have been sued are deeply, negatively affected. Some lose their passion for medicine. Some no longer trust their patients. Many fantasize about leaving medicine and opening a flower shop or a Bed and Breakfast.
I know that there isn’t much sympathy for doctors nowadays. I also know that there are some bad doctors who deserve consequences for their actions, like those who operate drunk or sell opiate prescriptions. But most doctors really are doing the best that they can. They care. They want you to get well. And they are devastated when things go wrong.
I pray that no one that you love ever faces a bad medical outcome. And I am not telling you not to file suit if they do. But before you have your lawyer send that life-altering letter to your doctor, just take a moment to reflect on his or her humanity. Is the money worth the human cost?
Be well,
Dr. C
www.insightmedicalconsultants.com
Comments
I think this is a pretty ridiculous one sided article. Of course your seminar from your malpractice insurer is going to be from the doctor's point of view and paint the doctor as the victim.
Why do you think on car insurance cards it tells you to not admit fault. At fault or not, the car insurance company will want to pay as little as possible and this chance remains there if you do not admit guilt, even if you know you are.
Do all doctor's deserve to be sued? Probably not. I think it sucks actually because it raises insurance costs for doctors, which raises the cost of going to the hospital for all of us. But this right shouldn't be taken away because believe it or not, some doctors out there do in fact make incompetent or negligent mistakes and they should pay for those. The right to sue must remain in tact. It should be modified to prevent abuse but it must remain there to keep doctors in check.
And please.. anxiety?? depression?? You don't think victims of negligence don't experience that and probably more?
Again, I believe there is wrong being committed on both sides, but I'm not going to go out and write a one sided article either.
I completely disagree with you, Jason. This is an article that represents a side rarely discussed. I am not a doctor, and I found it compelling. I have had loved ones who have been hurt by bad doctors--and there is no doubt that bad doctors do exist, even in Baltimore. But, Dr. C is merely prividing insight into what happens from the doctor's perspective. I loved this article, and I appreciate it for what it is--which is an inside glimpse into what so many of us never get to see.
Everyone needs to take a deep breath and understand that even though there are millions of dollars of beeping machines and laser technology, etc, medical science is still an inexact science. One plus one doesn't always equal two. But in our society we have an industry of people who thrive on "slips, falls, med mal, and personal injuries". We are a 'fault finding' species. When something doesn't go the way we intended, there must be someone to blame. That's damn sad.
If a group practice grossing $5 million has four lawsuits, it is all upset. If a welding business grosses $5 million, it likely has 400 lawsuits all the time. Walmart has 10,000 Lawsuits Everyday.
Doctors are among the most privileged of defendants. They set their own standards. Only the tiniest fraction of negligent care gets second guessed by a lawyer. When it does, there is nowhere to find a plaintiff expert who is not a broken down derelict, laughed at by the jury. The justice system favors doctor defendants in 75% of claims, from dismissal on first pleading, to jury verdicts, to appellate decisions.
Doctors have virtual immunity.
As a patient, subject to a life threatening error every day in the hospital I favor:
1) ending medmal; it is a bunco scheme to enrich lawyers, and does nothing to protect patients;
2) privileging every fact of error immediately disclosed from discovery in any future litigation or regulatory punishment;
3) Deming. Continual improvement demands the hospital wing be closed until the multiple factors contributing to the serious error have been found and stopped. This is like the assembly line at Toyota stops until the part fits.
Doctors will miss the days of weak medmal claims and second guessing by know nothing lawyers. This hellish regime of oversight by insiders gets enacted, with zero tolerance for carelessness as the norm.
As a patient, I want the games to end, and the safety to start.
The truth, Dr. C., is that patients rarely receive any compensation for injury or death caused by medical negligence. It would be nice if the insurance companies paid compensation to the injured people, but that rarely happens. In my state, Wisconsin, there were only four payments to people injured by medical negligence for every 1,000 doctors practicing here last year. That is right, only one payment for every 250 doctors. Why? Because jurors give the doctor every benefit of the doubt, making it almost impossible for injured people to win the cases, no matter how strong the facts. Although most people understand the concept that a person who is injured by another's negligence should be compensated by the insurer of the negligent person, that principle seems beyond the ken of the average juror when it comes to medical negligence. Contrary to popular belief, lawyers do not want to represent people injured by medical negligence because of the low chance of winning those cases. In Wisconsin, a state of 5.5 million people, there were only 150 medical malpractice lawsuits filed last year. There were only 67 payments made because of physician malpractice. Time after time, legitimate cases are lost because of juror reluctance to decide the case correctly by finding that the doctor was negligent. If you want to learn the truth about medical malpractice, read "Doctors & Juries" Mich. L. Rev., Vol. 106 , pp. 1-42 (2007). It can be downloaded online.
You may be interested in my article as it will represent the other side.
http://www.taskforce.org/JustinHope/CommentaryMarch3.pdf
and my survey spotlighting the the impact on the family: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=vMNMMUaeStBuzcGguD1rCQ_3d_3d
Justin's HOPE at the Task Force for Child Survival and Development
If you are interested in learning more about the nature of medical error from a well-regarded surgeon & writer's point of view, I highly recommend two books of essays by Atul Gawande, Complications and Better. Both look at what medicine & people can & cannot do at this time. It doesn't solve the imperfections of medicine & our legal system, but it helps diffuse some of the "good guys, bad guys, & poor victims" way of thinking which gets in the way of developing the best solutions we can.
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