'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.

Comments

Funny how stats don't back up doctors arguments

[rtilghman]

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

Blame the Doctor

[Aexia]

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.'

Sounds like an insurance company line

[www.sorehands.com]

The question is how many of the lawsuits are valid. In many states, before a malpractice lawsuit is filed the plaintiff must have a statement from another doctor that the lawsuit has merit. One of the popular mythes is that the McDonald's coffee lawsuit is baseless.

• For years McDonalds served their coffee up to 40 degrees hotter than other fast-food restaurants. In this way, they could get more coffee per pound of beans and increase their profits by a few cents per cup.
  
• McDonald's coffee was so hot that, if spilled, it could cause third degree burns, which would burn through skin and down to the muscle in less than three seconds.
  
• McDonald's has had over 700 previous claims related to serious burns from their coffee to their customers, many of whom had been injured in the genital area, inner thighs, and buttocks areas. Yet, McDonald's refused to lower the temperature of their coffee.
  
• 
  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.
  
• Lieback required eight days of hospitalization and multiple surgeries, including skin grafts as a result of being scalded by McDonald's coffee.
  
• Mrs. Lieback only took legal action against McDonald's after they repeatedly refused to reimburse her for her medical expenses.
  
• The jury was so outraged at the arrogance and callousness of McDonald's that they awarded punitive damages, to punish McDonald's and to deter McDonald's from such conduct in the future. They awarded $2.7 million.
  
• The day after the verdict, McDonald's reduced the temperature of their coffee.
  
• The trial judge thought the verdict was too high and reduced the verdict to about $400,000 at McDonald's request. (This is one fact that the insurance lawyers and McDonald's corporate lawyers never mention.)

Before claiming something is baseless, first look at all the facts.

Re:Sounds like an insurance company line

[GreyPoopon]

I know a guy who had a heart attack. They rushed him to the hospital and while there he got a staph infection.

How can you blame the doctor for this? The hospital and its procedures are usually to blame for these kinds of infections. If you've ever had any experience in a hospital, you'll know that outside of surgery, you see the doctor for a total of about 2 minutes during your entire stay, whereas the nurses, orderlies and residents disturbing you can drive you bonkers. Although its possible to be infected during surgery, I think its more likely to be infected by bacteria entering after surgery from the skin through the operative site. The instrumentation used during surgery is thoroughly sterilized and any hospital caught violating this procedure would be shut down by JCAHO immediately.

Also, us patients are as much to blame for the virulent staph infections. Staphylococcus Aureus is an extremely common bacteria, is frequently present on the surface of the skin, and is responsible for many common skin ailments such as boils, sties, abscesses and folliculitis (infected hair follical). What causes such a problem in hospitals is that the strains found there frequently don't respond to the standard round of antibiotics, and thus become extremely dangerous to high-risk patients (like heart-attack victims). The reason for these antibiotic-resistant strains? Primarily improper use of antibiotics. There are some basic simple rules about antibiotic usage that a huge section of society can't seem to follow:

1. Follow all directions given by the doctor and pharmacy exactly (that includes dosage schedules).
2. Take ALL of the antibiotics prescribed, even if you feel better
3. Never save leftover antibiotics for later use
4. Never take anyone elses prescription

These are not difficult rules to follow, but you'd be surpised at how many people refuse to do so. My own (extended) family members insist on taking antibiotics just until they feel better, and then saving the remainder for "next time." Time and again, I've explained that if they don't completely erradicate the bacteria, these antibiotics won't be very effective the next time. They just dismiss what I say as coming from a young "know it all." These same family members also tell us to go get antibiotics when one of our children has a cold. I've also tried to patiently explain that antibiotics do nothing to get rid of a virus, and that it doesn't make sense to treat for a potential secondary infection unless the patient has a history of such. They don't believe me.

So, back to the guy who got the staph infection. Sue the hospital and not the doctor. Although keep in mind that it is just as likely he carried his own infection in with him, and that the infection only became serious due to his weakened condition.

I also hope that the doctors all lose their license and live a life of abject poverty and suffering.

It's also possible that doctors will just stop practicing medicine because of people with a chip on their shoulder like yours. How is that going to make you feel when you need a doctor and can't find one anywhere? Do you enjoy paying such high rates for medical insurance in part because of escalating malpractice costs?

You want to blame somebody for what happened? Fine. But unless you know EXACTLY where the infection came from and how, you have to consider it just as likely that this guy already had the infection when he came into the hospital, and it got much worse because his body could no longer fight it off.

Re:even better....

[Webhund]

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.

Re:even better....

[Wwolmack]

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.