Slashdot Mirror
'They Can Sue, But They Can't Hide'
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times (free reg's yada, yada) has this article about Texas doctors running an online blacklist of patients who have sued. The searchable database is at doctorsknow.us. Nice to know that you can get blacklisted for suing the doctor that caused massive brain damage to your kid (and winning)." To add a plaintiff to the database, membership was not always required.
If you're a patient, check ChoiceTrust.
I've had arguments with doctors I know who take a highly visceral reaction to malpractice suits and jury awards. Nearly every one of them rails against what they perceive as a litigious US culture, and speaks with unquestioned confidence about how lawsuits are:
- driving up insurance costs
- unfairly assuming medical perfection
- making it unattractive or impossible to practice medicing in the US
What I find amazing is the fact that NONE of the statistics support any of these positions. According to two recent studies - one by the AMA and the other by the Harvard Public Policy school (?, I believe the Harvard Medical Practice Study) - both found that:
- malpractice, at least as defined by negligence, is fairly common
- of those with valid claims, only about 1% actually bring suit against a doctor
- of those who bring suit, only 1% are successful
This means that 1/100 of a percent of incidents of malpractice actually result in an award. Then you have the fact that the review committees in every case are made up of doctors and professionals, the act that an attorney who doesn't think a case is worth his effort or will reach an award won't even bother PURSUING the case, etc.
I'm also reminded of another study conducted in NY a few years back. If I remember correctly the study found that of all malpractice claims in the state less that 10 doctors were responsible for nearly 50% of the cases. Why were they practicing? Because the medical review boards hed declined to suspend their licenses for the incidents. These are people like the guy who operated on the wrong side of his patients skull, the guy who carved his initials into his patients abdomens etc.
You would think that after 30 years of schooling doctors - SCIENCISTS - would be intelligent enough to seek actual EVIDENCE to support their absurd claims; even the AMA disagrees with them! You'd think that GOOD doctors (and there are many) would be tired of paying exorbitant fees to subsidize the negligence of their incapable colleagues. You'd also think they'd be intelligent enough to bother examining the various mergers in the insurance industry and price increases in the face of decreased competition before leaping to absurd claims regarding jury awards and civil suits.
Bottom line: I'd like to see a comparable database of every doctor in the United States with every incident of potential malpractice, lawsuits, complaints, or peer review comprehensivlely outlined and available to the public. I'd like to see doctors held to a national standard of quality, put on suspension when there actions merit it, and suspended when they cross a threshold like ANY OTHER PROFESSION (say hello to the Bar). Will we see these things in the near future? No, because doctors have no interest in policing themselves and facing up to the truth of the situation.
The whole thing just makes me ill.
-rt
I personally know a few doctors, and malpractice lawsuits have gotten out of hand. Insurance for doctors has skyrocketed to an incredible rate. Somehow there must be a balance between the two - let them sue, but not too much?
High insurances rates aren't being caused by malpractice lawsuits; they're being caused by the stock market tanking. The medical insurance companies' holdings took a massive beating and they're raising rates to compensate.
States(like Florida) that have passed caps on damages for malpratice have insurance premiums just as high as the rest of the nation.
Tort reform is about making screwups a low, predictable cost of doing business and lawyers have become convienient scapegoats for those who would like to avoid responsibility for their actions.
In the end, the biggest(and highest profile) awards inevitably end up being against companies and people that repeatedly ignored the problem. It's funny that for a readership that decries so many abuses by corporate America, an awful lot of Slashdoters seem willing to castrate one of few remaining ways an individual person can hold a corporation accountable.
In California there is a massive shortage of obstetricians (baby-deliverers) because it's such a risky job. If the baby is still born the parents will find someway to blame someone; it's just a natural reaction to a tragedy.
Unfortunately this leads to many trials that are unwarranted and yet the parents still win. Now you almost have to leave the state if you want to have a baby.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
Just files my taxes and I paid @ 28% not counting GST (which is put on non-food goods purchased in the store) which I can't quickly estimate. We pay more taxes but we get more. It balances out. If you and anyone in your family never gets sick you obviously win but...
God, I wish I could think of a sig!
He diagosed you wrong? That happens. Get over it.
My mom was misdiagnosed with cancer. She had chemotherapy and a hysterectomy(no more kids), but she's always suspected she was misdiagnosed. Now, 25 years later, she's have numerous and serious health problems related to the treatment that have nearly cost her life.
And while it pissed her off, she was willing to just 'get over it'.
Until she found the same doctor misdiagnosed DOZENS of women and had them undergo the same treatment. And nearly all of them are having the same health problems my mom is having now.
But hey, I guess that sort of thing just 'happens.'
Here is an article that mentions this exact situation. A lawyer sued someone who refused to sell to him, but he ultimately lost.
Umm... add it all up. Federal income tax, state income tax, FICA (7.5% visible + 7.5% hidden), sales tax, property tax. You're already probably giving the government about half of your income. And you're already paying the staggering healthcare costs for a most of old the sick retired people who aren't even working.
Somehow you've let people convince you that you should pay high taxes for other peoples' health coverage, but it would be somehow to your disadvantage if you were eligible for benefits under this system that you're paying for.
Every detail of my professional life, including my home address, any criminal arrests or convictions, lawsuits or disciplinary actions, is required by Florida law to be online.
http://ww2.doh.state.fl.us/irm00profiling/searchf
If I get arrested for DUI (not convicted, just arrested) I would have to undergo a years-long period of intensive intervention and probabtion, or I would lose my license.
If I have to undego all this, why shouldn't everyone be forced to undergo this sort of scrutiny???
Suck it up, people!
Steve
Is that while many of the readers here equate this with a "blacklist" of individuals who have filed frivolous lawsuits, it is not. This is merely a listing of individuals who have sued, and the site makes no claims of judgment. From the site itself: "We acknowledge that many of the people in this database may be involved in meritorious malpractice suits." And "DoctorsKnow.Us does not judge fitness of claims." However, by making no claims (and, from the information I see, providing no details about the lawsuit), this site puts clients who filed lawsuits with merit alongside those who filed frivolous lawsuits. The implication seems to be that these are people Doctors need to know about and possibly be wary of.
The site's "Group Monitor" function, which regularly scans the DoctorsKnow.US database for specific names suggests that it's important that doctors need to be aware of any legal proceedings on the part of their patients, without placing any importance on the legitimacy of the claims.
Yes, this is merely a database of publicly available information, but by grouping the information in such a way, in such a venue, the suggestion is that doctors need to be careful about taking these individuals as patients, regardless of whether their case had merit. The thought that doctors could be using this information to turn down patients is highly disturbing.
Though there are, without a doubt, people who abuse the system, but this database groups the innocent with the guilty without any sort of discrimination. Do we really expect the doctors to, after finding a name here, to go and do further research as to whether or not the case was legitimate? Doctors are busy people and their staff are busy too. I fear that such a database will hurt the innocent who have exercised their legal rights just as much (if not more) than it will punish the guilty.
http://ww2.doh.state.fl.us/irm00profiling/searchfo rm.asp
I can't recall hearing of a large judgement against a doctor, hospital, or HMO recently where the case was minor.
No. But it still COSTS MONEY to defend the minor cases. That's the problem on the legal side.
If Joe Patient sues me because he had to have his ingrown toenail removed again, I now have to defend myself, even though the case is trivial. So my insurance blows 10K+ defending this trivial case, and I've got to pay more insurance.
When I was in Med School in Alabama, we had two lectures from Lawyers, one from a Plaintiff's lawyer and one from a Defense Lawyer. Both stated that in Alabama, only 20% of cases brought to trial in the state ended in Plantiff Verdicts. So, consider the amount of money spent defending the other 80% that went to court and the innumerable others that were settled out of court and it becomes easier to see the scope of the problem. It's one of the reasons that some in the medical field are pushing for a Medical Court or Medical Approval Board that deems whether a malpractice case can/should be pursued.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
Not surprising. My brother and his wife are both doctors. When she had a practice in California her office kept a much simpler database...ALL F***ING LAWYERS in the area. Her philosophy was it was cheaper to be sued for refusing to see a "new" patient then to actually try to practice medicine on them. This database was shared among other offices so that they could refuse the slime of society on the spot.
The injured (burned) plaintiff in this case, 79 year old Stella Lieback, was not driving her car. She was seated as the passenger in her grandson's parked car, holding the coffee cup between her legs while removing the plastic lid. The cup tipped over and poured the scalding hot coffee into her lap causing third degree burns.
Before claiming something is baseless, first look at all the facts.
Fight Spammers!
Doctor-turned-engineer here. I have no personal experience with being sued for medical malpractice. My impression is that lawsuits are not triggered by the actual bad event, but by personality differences between doctors and patients.
Sick people often get sicker, and sometimes die. Many (not all) lawsuits seem to me to be caused by the fact that something bad happened, and the doctor and family didn't communicate well. What's frustrating as a doctor is that the "something bad" isn't always due to something the doctor did wrong, or could have done differently.
It seems like being a smooth talker is more important than practicing effective medicine. But I guess witch doctors have known that all along -- they don't ever seem to get sued.
Anyway, two abstracts from the New England Journal of Medicine. At least the profession monitors itself occasionally.
Volume 335:1963-1967
December 26, 1996
Relation between Negligent Adverse Events and the Outcomes of Medical-Malpractice Litigation
Troyen A. Brennan, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., Colin M. Sox, B.A., and Helen R. Burstin, M.D., M.P.H.
Background We have previously shown that in New York State the initiation of malpractice suits correlates poorly with the actual occurrence of adverse events (injuries resulting from medical treatment) and negligence. There is little information on the outcome of such lawsuits, however. To assess the ability of malpractice litigation to make accurate determinations, we studied 51 malpractice suits to identify factors that predict payment to plaintiffs.
Methods Among malpractice claims that we reviewed independently in an earlier study, we identified 51 litigated claims and followed them over a 10-year period to determine whether the malpractice insurer had closed the case. We obtained detailed summaries of the cases from the insurers and reviewed the litigation files if the outcome of a case differed from the outcome predicted in our original review.
Results Of the 51 malpractice cases, 46 had been closed as of December 31, 1995. Among these cases, 10 of 24 that we originally identified as involving no adverse event were settled for the plaintiffs (mean payment, $28,760), as were 6 of 13 cases classified as involving adverse events but no negligence (mean payment, $98,192) and 5 of 9 cases in which adverse events due to negligence were found in our assessment (mean payment, $66,944). Seven of eight claims involving permanent disability were settled for the plaintiffs (mean payment, $201,250). In a multivariate analysis, disability (permanent vs. temporary or none) was the only significant predictor of payment (P = 0.03). There was no association between the occurrence of an adverse event due to negligence (P = 0.32) or an adverse event of any type (P = 0.79) and payment.
Conclusions Among the malpractice claims we studied, the severity of the patient's disability, not the occurrence of an adverse event or an adverse event due to negligence, was predictive of payment to the plaintiff.
July 25, 1991
Relation between malpractice claims and adverse events due to negligence. Results of the Harvard Medical Practice Study III
BACKGROUND AND METHODS. By matching the medical records of a random sample of 31,429 patients hospitalized in New York State in 1984 with statewide data on medical-malpractice claims, we identified patients who had filed claims against physicians and hospitals. These results were then compared with our findings, based on a review of the same medical records, regarding the incidence of injuries to patients caused by medical management (adverse events). RESULTS. We identified 47 malpractice claims among 30,195 patients' records located on our initial visits to the hospitals, and 4 claims among 580 additional records located during follow-up visits. The overall rate of claims per discharge (weighted) was 0.13 percent (95 percent confidence interval, 0.076 to 0.18 percent). Of the 280 patients who had adverse events caused by medical negligence
Ok I will. Granted I'm not in the medical profession, so I can't use the fancy terms, but I'll give you an example to the best of my ability.
I'm rushed to the hospital after suffering a car accident. My neck is broken, but I still have feeling in my legs (the neck is broken, but not the spinal cord). I start choking on my own blood (don't ask why, It just starts to happen). The doctor makes a mistake and moves to fast, snapping the spinal cord. If he had moved slower, if might not have happened.
Sometimes shit happens, and people get hurt. Does it suck? Yes it does. To me that is an example of a screw up that would be ok because "people just make mistakes". The doc was just trying to save your life in an extreme situation.
Now, if that makes sense to anyone, could you please explain it to me? I think I've confused myself.
The American Medical Association said that it had just learned of the group and that it saw no ethical issues at stake.
"There's no question that physicians are totally frustrated by the relentless assault on the medical profession by trial lawyers,"
My father-in-law is a radiologist. He's had a few suits launched against him. Is he perfect? .... no. Is he negligent? hell no!!!
Recently a chain-smoker's family (daughter) came after him (amongst others) and claims that her dad wasn't warned soon enough about his lung cancer and the risks of smoking. My father-in-law only came in on the case (medically, not litigiously speaking) later as it was. This BTW .. because cause he lost his job since they could hire a youger, less-expensive radiologist who did less prone-to-malpractice suit types of readings. He was also asked if he warned the chain-smoking dude that smoking might lead to something like lung cancer. The suit has been carried forward by one of his daughters while the rest of the family stood by embarrassed of it all. Do doctors deserve fair warning against such a patient? In my opinion, yes. Do all people who have sued and won on malpractice deserve to be 'black-listed' ... no. Do some deserve it ... I'm sure. Question is how to determine that ... ??? The only thing I can think of is full-disclosure ... on both ends!
In most cases, the insurance company & the doctor decide to settle (guilty or not) and try send everyone home as happy as is possible and without breaking everyone involved financially. That doesn't tell anything about who was or wasn't negligent. I do think however in a case that was clear negligence, the doctor needs to be yanked from the profession just like drunk drivers should have their licenses yanked until they show they are not a threat to others in that position. But we see how good we are at taking drunk-drivers off the road, right? And it appears it's not much different for negligent doctors in many cases. And let's not even start on the number of patients who take no responsibility for their own health and expect the doctor to prescribe it to them in a bottle.
It's just sickening to see America(ns) looking for someone else to blame everything on and the lawyers getting fat and rich at the continual inflow of work due to hunt down someone else on which to drop the accountability. This will continue the trend of the brightest people going where the money is ... practicing law, not into science and medicine. Where will that leave us then? With even sharper/sneakier lawyers ... great! That's just what we need isn't it!?!?!?!
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
Good Samaritan laws (which is amusing if you know the history of the Samaritans... which is why their being a good one was noteworthy) normally protect someone... The general rule of thumb is that if you are trying to help, as a good samaritan, you are immune from lawsuits... It's the type of law that is on the books to protect people that are being good Americans from our out-of-control legal system.
There is probably a medical ethics law or something similar that you are thinking of.
There are "good samaritan" laws around here that say since he's a doctor, he's obliged to help.
I don't know what it is like in the states, but in Canada, the Good Samaritan Act is intended to protect people who help out accident victims, not to force people to help out.
Really? What are you doing that exposes you to so many bacterial infections?
Most common ailments from which people suffer (most coughs and colds, the flu) are viral infections. Antibiotics don't have any effect on them whatsoever.
By taking antibiotics for those diseases, you're doing yourself no good, and probably hurting yourself. First, you're knocking out the population of healthy, symbiotic bacteria in your gut that aid digestion and do a number of other useful things for you. Second, by knocking down the healthy population of bacteria, you leave behind a fertile open ground for nasty bacteria to colonize. Then you need antibiotics, perhaps...
Please, I encourage you to consult a physician (or at least a veterinarian) before self-medicating further.
~Idarubicin
Very often said Good Samaritan laws have protections in them which make such a scenario impossible. If your cardiologist friend lives in MA, for example- he needs to speak with a lawyer, because he was fully protected.
I imagine even if he wasn't, its the sort of thing that wouldn't raise his insurance premiums one iota(at least not directly). Sorry, but I'm -really- tired of hearing doctors, driving $100,000 cars, living in multi-million-dollar homes, with trophy wives and 6 weeks vacation on some private island...whine about how rough it is that their insurance just costs so gosh darn much.
Ever looked at medical stats? We have shit for medical care in this country- some of the highest malpractice, fatality and complication(ie, go in for one thing, come out with something else) rates in the world; our doctors and nurses are, for the most part, completely incompetent by modern standards. Some(staph infection, for example) are simply because doctors are --too fucking lazy-- to wash their hands properly. At a DC doctor's conference on infection control, barely 1/4 of the mens room users even so much as washed their hands under running water!
Please help metamoderate.
Canadians have a longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate, I'd say overall their system is working better.
/ Ar chives/002328.html
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Philosophy/tar
Insurance premiums in Texas (TMLT) dropped 12% overnight when state limits on non-economic damages were signed into law.
I'd get your facts straight about Nevada first:
Before a patient victimized by medical malpractice may file a lawsuit in Nevada District Court, the patient must submit a claim to the Medical Dental Screening Panel, consisting of six professionals - three doctors and three attorneys.
Before a patient victimized by medical malpractice may file a claim, another doctor must sign an affidavit under oath that medical malpractice occurred and caused injury to the patient.
In medical malpractice claims, Nevada has a loser pays system. If a patient victimized by medical malpractice loses at the screening panel, proceeds to court and loses at trial, the victim must pay the doctors attorneys fees and costs. Recent examples include awards against victims in excess of $100,000.
Nevada has over 4,000 doctors, 16,000 Registered Nurses, and more than 2,000 Licensed Practical Nurses. Every day, thousands of procedures (e.g., surgery, blood transfusions, medication administration, diagnoses) are performed in Nevada. In 2001, 219 claims were filed at the screening panel, 181 of which were filed in Clark County.
Finally, let's put this all into perspective:
The St. Paul insurance company paid out about $19.6 million in Nevada malpractice claims in the same year that it lost over $108 Million related to Enron: http://www.ntla.org/medmal/Exhibita.pdf
Last time I checked, St. Paul hasn't stopped insuring other businesses or pushed for caps on claims made by fraudulent businesses like Enron whose entire business plan was the corporate equivalent of supposed ambulance-chasing malpractice victims. That wouldn't go over too well in the boardroom; it's a heckuva lot easier to conjure up some smoke-and-mirror "crisis" targeted against individual claimants who have neither the corporate nor financial wherewithal to mount a unified front to defeat such nonsense.
Support for your argument. Here in Mississippi, the problem seems to be the worst (just offering context). Recently, there was a case in which a woman with cancer had to have her uterus removed. The doctor, following standard procedure, removed the uterus and branded his initials into it. This practice serves two purposes: it identifies anterior and posterior, and who removed the uterus (as well as who it was removed from) for the lab guys. Nevertheless, the woman found out about this, and sued for maliciously and cravenly defiling her body. She won, might I add. Nevertheless, the doctor followed proper procedure, made no flaws, and the patient recovered quite nicely thanks to timely intervention. How's that for gratitude?
I've worked in the US as an ER doc and I've worked overseas as an ER doc. Posted below is someone who believes that health care is better overseas. S/he is wrong. The health care in the US is much (even wildly) better when it comes to critical care and acute illness. When it comes to preventive care, overseas can be better, if they have the money.
As far as the ability to sue, doctors aren't judged by by a jury of peers. Trying to explain complicated biological concepts to a jury that has been hand picked for ignorance by the plantiff's lawyer makes a fair trial unlikely. That's why everyone is moving out of south texas. The jury is of the patient's peers, not the doctors. No one cares about guilt, innocence or jusitice. They just care about the pay out from the insurance company.
As an aside, I'm quitting medicine, and no, i've never been sued. But between no reimbursement for my services, ridiculous risk of malpractice suits and the generally absurb expectations of patients, I've given up.
You talk about OBs, well if you've ever had a baby you would know that the doctor is usually only present for a couple of minutes, the nurses do everything. Guess who gets the bulk of the pay though...
Tell me about it. I'm in a program with a certified nurse-midwife as my primary care provider. After 23 weeks of pregnancy, I haven't seen a "doctor" at all (which I'm fine with). However, I've already paid a deposit on my expected co-pay for the *doctor's* delivery charges... which I won't owe them until sometime in late June or early July.
Granted, they are charging me in advance because apparently the routine visits throughout the pregnancy are all packaged in with the delivery according to my insurance company, so they get *no* payment until the baby is delivered... and have some difficulty collecting if I up and deliver somewhere else. But no one has ever been able to explain to me why I'm paying for a doctor's services in a program where I don't actually see one.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
1. If you had a pay all this money, why didn't you go to trial and prove your case?
Becuase its not up to the doctor on whether the case goes to trial. That decision is made by his malpratice insurance.
2. If they answer, "my insurance company made me settle," then ask them why they rolled over on their principles because some faceless insurance company told them to.
Again, they dont have a choice in the matter. There insurance company most likely decides this.
Have insurance premiums gone down? Probably not. But what does go down in price? Whats happened is in locations where tort reform has happened, annual premium increses have dropped from double or even triple digit percentage increases down to the single digits.
Malpractice insurers may be greedy. Health insueres may be greedier. But lawyers are the greediest son of a bitches there are.
If you want to get technical, you add the milk to the espresso. And I'm fairly confident that the milk is hotter, having been burnt by both. The finished drink should be at a minimum of 170 degrees after you are done fiddling with syrups and toppings and shit, so the milk needs to be around 190, especially if you are doing a caramel macchiato or some similarly syrup laden beverage. Soy milk is an exception as it burns more readily than regular milk - do not order soy mochas with flavored syrups as the temperature required of the soy to melt the syrup produces a lovely burnt flavor nauseatingly masked by all the sugar.
Sure, the water in the espresso machine is scalding, and the espresso dripping from it is pretty hot too. But in the little cup that catches it, it cools very quickly. This is why the milk must be added to it as soon as possible. The end beverage product will vary from 160 to 180ish, with somewhere around 175 being a nice ideal. When you are making 5 drinks in a little under two minutes, for an hour and a half straight, this is hard to achieve in practice. Other complications involve children's beverages, which are served at much lower heat (usu. 140 max) and beverages served at higher heat, such as hot apple cider and americanos.
An americano is what you get when you add 190 degree water to espresso. It is the Italian approximation of American coffee.
As I have been employed at a McDonald's franchise after the disputed, I will simply say that if they lowered the hold temperature of the coffee then it was a damn good thing they did so, as it was at least 185 degrees at "my" store in CA. The water used to make the coffee was abominably hot. We had to use it to make hot tea for people. The teabags come in a paper wrapper with golden arches on them, so I was never tempted to try the tea. The water itself was comfortably above boiling. It burnt me worse than the fry oil ever did.
Coffee has a higher boiling point than plain old water, which means that you may not necessarily be aware that what you think is hot coffee is actually a nuclear furnace in an insulated bunker.
I will go far as to say that I believe that if the woman in question was burnt as badly as she claims and McDonald's would not cover her hospital bills and she sued McD for the purposes of paying her medical expenses, then her lawsuit was not frivolous, given my bias that nobody should be peddling a substance capable of that level of tissue damage for the specific purpose of ingestion into one's vulnerable oral orifice.
Twist Tricks,
Arek Rashan
I know an AC (a troll) who once posted a complete lie...
Good Samaritan Laws (enacted in every state in the USA) protect people who perform CPR and emergency care from lawsuits over injuries sustained during the care.
So if you are CPR-certified, and crack a heart attack victim's ribs after they consent* for you to perform CPR on them, they can't sue you for the cracked ribs.
Good Samaritan laws do not obligate anybody to help somebody in an emergency. Not helping somebody in an emergency is perfectly legal.
Btw, I am a law student, and CPR-certified.
*: You can obtain regular consent or implied consent. Implied consent is when a person is unable to consent (usually due to being unconcious) but a reasonable person would likely consent. Handy if somebody is choking on food but won't consent to the heimlich, because as soon as they pass out, you can perform rescue breathing/unconcious choking care on them.
As an AC mentioned, I don't think they were a horrible people, but there was a lot of mutual animosity between them and the Jews. There had been a recent incident involving defacing a temple, and so Jews were actually praying that Samaritans would not get eternal life. You can read the parable itself at Luke 10:30 and a good analysis here. It mentions why the priest and Levite were reluctant to help, and why the Samaritan would be as well. Yet of course the despised Samaritan does what the others would not.
I'm an atheist, but I like this parable. And it seems that most people neither understand the historical details nor understand that they can be the good Samaritan in their daily lives.
Alan Hicks wrote: I can legally buy my own general purpose antibiotics and knock out most anything.
Idarubicin replied: Most common ailments from which people suffer (most coughs and colds, the flu) are viral infections. Antibiotics don't have any effect on them whatsoever. [...] through the regular use of antibiotics, you encourage the evolution of bacterial strains resistant to common broad-spectrum antibiotics. That doesn't just screw you, by the way...it affects the rest of us too.
Idarubicin is very much right. As someone who is quite allergic to at least one antibiotic, I hate people who abuse antibiotics by (1) taking them when they are unnecessary and (2) failing to finish their courses of antibiotics. (You do not stop taking the pills when you feel better! You take them all!) By failing to use antibiotics properly, you encourage resistant strains. Thus, we have to switch to different antibiotics, and that idea scares me. There aren't that many good ones to choose from, and who knows if any of the other ones are also dangerous to me. I'd rather just stick with the one I've repeatedly taken without problems, but people like Alan Hicks might make that impossible.
They're already limiting antibiotic use for ear infections, which are bacterial infections. They likely will have to start limiting them more for other types of infections as well. Though the article doesn't say so, I believe this is largely because antibiotics are abused by people like you, Alan Hicks.
How to take antibiotics properly: Go to the doctor when you think you need them. Tell him your symptoms. If he thinks you need antibiotics, question it anyway. Make sure his diagnosis makes sense, and make sure it is for a bacterial infection. When he gives you a course of antibiotics, take every one at the proper time. If you only feel better near the very end of the course, ask about extending the course to completely knock out the infection.
I wish I could find the sources, please someone with more knowledge of law help me here..
As I understand it, the crisis started when a doctor who had only (insert amount here, I don't remember how much. Try about 3 million) coverage. He lost a malpratice suit. The jury awarded (I think hundreds of millions) in dammages. The insurance company paid the policy limit. The court objected and forced the insurer to pay way beyond the coverage plan. (I think it was a defective baby case). Due to this opening of the cap on insurance policies, insurers found they were charging rates for a (one or two) million policy, but had the liability of (a good part of a billion) in coverage. Needless to say they started to charge for (maybe 500) million policies instead of one or two because the court re-wrote the doctors policies. With a policy limit removed by the courts, we have the spiral of hit the deep pockets with lawsuits and charging for the big policies that the courts mandated. The mistake happened when a multi hundred million award was forced out of a several million policy. That broke the insurance system.
Any history buff want to help me fill in the blanks? Anybody want to prove me wrong?
The truth shall set you free!
This isn't flamebait. I'm just annoyed at people who make quick, uninformed judgments. Normally, medical malpractice cases are extremely difficult to vindicate because the average jury, who just like you, hates malpractice lawyers, has to find by a clear preponderance of the evidence that something wrong happened. To convince a jury of this requires expensive medical expert testimony that is rebutted by the other side. The plaintiff has the burden of persuasion just like the prosecution in a criminal case.
Actually I believe that in Tort cases, as with any civil case there doesn't need to be a clear preponderance of the evidence, the jury just needs to be beyond a shadow of a doubt sure.
The worst part of being athiest.... You don't have anyone to talk to during orgasm!
You have things backwards. "Beyond a shadow of a doubt" is the more stringent standard, and "preponderance of the evidence" is indeed the requirement for civil cases.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
Malpractice suits are a true problem for physicians. Since there is no downside to filing a suit (attorneys don't charge unless they win) there is no reason not to sue. Also only about 20% of malpractice cases are won by the plantiff. (If that were the case in medicine, you doctor could be correct only 20% of the time, this would be unacceptable.)Something needs to be done about this. Would you rather have your money go to pay for healthcare or go to laywers?
I'm not certain of the purpose of the database of plantiffs. Its best use appears to highlight how useless such databases are. Everyone seems fine that there is a database on physicians who are sued, eventhough the physician may have won every case in the database. A doctor in a high risk specialty my be sued frequently due to bad outcomes eventhough they do everything correctly. Either database (physician or plantiff) is probably equally meaningless.
I'd have to say stopping at accidents is a dicey business at best. If you don't have the tools/training, you might be hurting more than helping.
Disclaimer: I'm an ER doc, and I've got about every certification you can shake a stick at... BLS, ACLS, ATLS, Pediatric ALS, etc, etc... in addition to experience rendering care under fire as a tactical medic. I'm comfortable rendering care in the field, partially from my training, but also because EMS direction is part and parcel of EM practice. I also carry my jump bag in my vehicle, so I've got advanced airway management, hemorrhage control, monitoring capability... all in a backpack.
I stop at traffic accidents if they happen right in front of me, or if there is no EMS on scene. However, I would not expect a radiologist to stop (in fact, I'd almost hope he wouldn't... he'd probably just be in the way). If somebody is really FUBAR'd and needs me to stay with them, I stay until they're in qualified hands (that may mean a ride to the hospital)... otherwise, I immediately hand off to the medics and leave.
Having a medical license doesn't mean you're qualified to offer care in the field. For my own part, if I was laying bleeding in the road somewhere, I'd rather have a paramedic (or maybe a surgeon) than some of my colleagues. I don't mean that as an insult to other doctors... but care in austere environments is very different from the office... it's simply not within the scope of most physicians' practice or experience.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I mean, the statute of limitations on the tort probably already expired.
Nope. There are only time limits for adults. There is no such limit for malpractice where a minor is involved. Exact details vary from state to state.
Since the article itself refers to Texas, let's look at their laws. There, you have two years to bring an action. If it's a course of treatment, rather than a specific incident, you have two years from the date of the last treatment. If, however, this period begins before the claimant is 18, an action may be brought at any time until the claimant's 20th birthday.
Now, a pediatrician or other provider working with kids has a decent amount of exposure. But a OB has a full twenty years until they're certain they aren't going to be sued for a perceived negligence on their part.
My sister is an OB nurse. She sees plenty of people who don't bother with proper pre-natal care. They drink and smoke (cigarettes and otherwise) throughout their pregnancy. When the kid pops out with a problem, there's lawyers all over daytime television who are willing to take the doctor to court, because it's obviously their fault.