Thoughts on Malpractice
The easiest way to save real money under a nationalized health care system would be by making it as hard to sue that government agency as it already is to sue all other government agencies. Doing so would eliminate most if not all the money doctors now have to put aside annually to pay for malpractice insurance. Unfortunately, it would also minimize patient recourse after incompetent of malevolent treatment.
To put this into focus, here is how a recent malpractice case looked to the local doctor involved, as reported to the Chicago Flame:.
"After 29 years of practice, I just had the experience of sitting in the defendant's seat in a medical malpractice trial. Emergency physicians are sued frequently. We often have to act with a paucity of information. Plus no one minds suing a doctor that they have met for only a brief time. It isn't like suing good ol' Doc Jones, the family doctor with whom you have shared some history. After all, if things don't turn out fine, it must be someone's fault. The corollary to that argument: if it is someone's fault, then someone has to pay.
Now, I'm not too proud to say that I make mistakes. Ask my kids. I do it all the time. I take comfort in the fact that I can honestly say that I, like the vast majority of my colleagues, do the best I can for my patients. Unfortunately, this is not synonymous with great results. Somehow, medical malpractice standards have evolved from a standard of "what a reasonably well trained physician would be expected to do under similar circumstances" to a standard that "mistakes, or even an undesirable outcome without mistakes, implies guilt."
...
I had heard horror stories from others who had gone before me, but I was unprepared for how vicious the plaintiff's attorney could be. My reputation, ethics, work habits and intelligence were all mocked. Family members of the deceased patient testified, complete with blown up family photos, of what a great guy the deceased had been. I don't doubt it. I just kept wondering what that had to do with anything. After all, my parents were wonderful people, and they died anyway. It happens. If being good people is the criteria we are to use, then I want to know where I can sign up to be compensated for their loss. Only seems fair to me.
My patient had a medical problem that was simply not survivable. Only the $4500 for two hours of testimony plaintiff's "expert" felt otherwise. That guy was amazing. He testified that without ever seeing the patient that he knew more about him than the surgeon who operated on him. Now I'm not saying that the money had any role in influencing his opinion, but……..
After six days of trial, five years since the occurrence and a couple of months of cumulative missed work attending various legal actions, it finally came down to the jury. The lawyers could say that it was just part of business, and it wasn't anything personal, but I beg to differ. It felt very personal. All my years of working at 3 a.m. on holidays and birthdays came back to me. All of the patients that I had worked feverishly to care for, at the expense of my own health-both physical and mental-and family life meant nothing to these piranhas. The plaintiff's attorney asked the jury for $3.5 million. My insurance policy was for $1 million. Except for the hospital backing me, my house, savings and kid's college money would be at risk. That is about as personal as it gets.
Finally, at almost 9 p.m., the jury reached a verdict. They "found for the defendant." In other words: nothing would happen. That was the best I could have wished for. On another day with a different set of 12 "peers," the results could easily have been reversed. I would beg to differ with anyone who called me a winner. A survivor maybe, but definitely not a winner.
My wife and I, exhausted, are changed people, motivated to get out of clinical medicine ASAP.. With time it might change. If we stay, we'll be less enthusiastic about caring for patients, wondering which one is going to come back and play the lottery with our lives. If we leave, we become a growing statistic-two more who have retired early, left the field or moved out of state-due to a system wildly out of control"
One more thing: when good doctors leave, doctors still seeking work may be from Al Queda, as Great Britain's National Health Service learned last week.
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