Still No Interest in Prevention
Most doctors in America will be sued at some point
during their career.
That is the lead-in phrase of a front page story in the
August 18 issue of The Boston Globe reporting the findings of a Harvard study
that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. Study of claims data for 41,000 physicians for
the period 1991-2005 showed that 7.5 per cent of them were subjected to a
malpractice claim each year and that 1.6 per cent had a claim leading to a
financial settlement.
The article went on to quote various experts on the
implications of these findings. The
threat to the doctor’s reputation was mentioned, as was the incentive to
practice defensive medicine. Comments
included the benefits of doctors talking openly with their patients, making
apologies as necessary and offering compensation when appropriate. There was report of efforts to secure
legislation making such conversations and apologies inadmissible in malpractice
trials. Laws are being sought that
prescribe a vetting period before initiating a lawsuit, during which time there
would be discussion and sharing of information between doctor and patient.
At no point was there any discussion of prevention. In each of the thousands of cases identified
in the study, somebody for some reason felt sufficiently aggrieved by something
that happened medically to go to the trouble of securing an attorney and filing
suit, despite the heavy odds against winning any financial reward. One would think there would be interest in trying
to find out what might have been done to prevent the legal action being
initiated. And where there was a real
medical error involved, an effort to see how it might have been avoided.
There is great interest in promoting preventive measures
when it comes to individual health, but great inhibition against probing into
medical practices that cause patients to seek legal relief.
