THE PROBLEM WITH MALPRACTICE, IS THERE IS SO MUCH MALPRACTICE

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http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/docvoices.doc.pdf

 

MYTHBUSTER

 

THE PROBLEM WITH MALPRACTICE IS MALPRACTICE

 

DOCTORS’ VOICES:

 

THE PROBLEM WITH MALPRACTICE IS MALPRACTICE

 

In March 2002, the American Medical Association (AMA) announced plans to lobby

lawmakers and

 

courts in at least 25 states and mount an ad campaign to raise support for

limits on injured patients’

 

rights to sue for malpractice, arguing that malpractice lawsuits are the cause

of our nation’s health care

 

problems. Yet many within the medical profession disagree with the AMA’s

message:

 

Dr. Richard G. Roberts, chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians

and professor

 

of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, has issued his

" Top 10

 

Myths of Medical Malpractice " in which he lists 10 " Truths " about the civil

justice system,

 

including:

 

• " About one in 50 hospitalized patients is injured due to negligence, and yet

only one in 10 of

 

those files a lawsuit and, among those filing suits, only one in 20 receives

money…. "

 

• " There is more malpractice committed than is recognized, litigated or

compensated. "

 

• " Plaintiffs in most cases are not ‘gold-digging.’ The vast majority [of

plaintiffs] have (medical)

 

outcomes none of us would want for ourselves or our loved ones. "

 

• Judges and juries " rule in favor of the physician from 70 to 75 percent of the

time…. "

 

http://www.aafp.org/servlet/mntPress?press_id=1266 & prhtml=afp_article_browse & act\

ioncode=select

 

Donald Palmisano, president-elect of the 300,000-member American Medical

Association, who

 

founded a company that tells doctors how to avoid malpractice suits, has drawn

criticism

 

from members of the medical community. Palmisano has written, " Although the

physician

 

may aspire to give the best care, the law does not require the best, " and " The

law requires a

 

minimally acceptable level of care, thus my analogy to the ‘low hurdle.’ "

 

• " Mitchell Rabkin, CEO emeritus of the Beth Israel Hospital and CareGroup in

Boston, said he

 

objected to Palmisano’s ‘low hurdle’ analogy. ‘You practice medicine in order to

clear the

 

highest hurdle,’ he said, ‘and to do it every time.’ "

 

• " John Baldwin, dean of the Dartmouth Medical School, said focusing on

malpractice reform will

 

not address fundamental economic problems in the health care system. ‘Physicians

should be

 

reimbursed based on the quality of outcomes rather than the number of procedures

they

 

perform,’ he said. ‘That would solve most of the malpractice problem.’ "

 

MYTHBUSTER

 

2

 

• " Sidney Wolfe, a physician and liberal activist who runs Public Citizen’s

Health Research

 

Group, said, ‘Even though you can get away with it in a malpractice suit, it may

not be helpful

 

to the patient.…The AMA should be promoting excellence in medicine, rather than

as little as

 

you can get away with.’ "

 

Ceci Connolly, " AMA Officer Sparks Ethics Debate; Doctor-Lawyer’s Business

Advises on How to Avoid

 

Malpractice Suits, " Washington Post, June 15, 2002.

 

Dr. William M. Sage, professor at Columbia Law School, writes in " Putting the

Patient Back in

 

Patient Safety, " in the June 12, 2002, issue of the AMA Journal:

 

• " …it is likely that most substandard care never results in a lawsuit or a

complaint. "

 

• " …reducing lawsuits requires preventing errors. "

 

http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v287n22/ffull/jed20027.html

 

Dr. Wayne Cohen, who in 1995 was medical director of Bronx Municipal Hospital,

said, " The city

 

was spending so much money defending obstetrics suits, they just made a decision

that it would

 

be cheaper to hire people who knew what they were doing. "

 

Dean Baquet and Jane Fritsch, " New York’s Public Hospitals Fail, and Babies Are

the Victims, " New York

 

Times, March 5, 1995.

 

In 1985, the director of Maternal/Fetal Medicine at Pasadena’s Huntington

Memorial Hospital

 

told the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, " The greatest cause of

malpractice

 

is malpractice. You must understand that some of the malpractice out there is so

grievous,

 

offensive and implausible as to beggar the imagination. "

 

Letter from Ralph Nader to Florida Speaker Mills and Senate President Vogt

(1988).

 

AND A WORD FROM AN INSURANCE INDUSTRY LOBBYIST …

 

In a New York Times column called " Crushed by My Own Reform, " written on October

7, 1994,

 

Frank Cornelius, former lobbyist with the Insurance Institute of Indiana, wrote,

" In 1989, I

 

underwent routine arthroscopic surgery after injuring my left knee in a fall. "

As a result of a

 

series of catastrphoic incidents of malpractice, Cornelius continued, " I am

confined to a

 

wheelchair and need a respirator to keep breathing. I have not been able to

work. I have

 

continuous physical pain in my legs and feet.… Twice, I have received last rites

from my

 

church. My marriage is ending, and the emotional fallout on our five children

has been difficult

 

to witness, to say the least. At the age of 49, I am told that I have less than

two years to live.

 

" In 1975, I helped persuade the Indiana Legislature to pass what was acclaimed

as a pioneering

 

reform of the medical malpractice laws: a $ 500,000 cap on damage awards, and

elimination of

 

all damages for pain and suffering. I argued successfully that such limits would

reduce healthcare

 

costs and encourage physicians to stay in Indiana — the same sort of arguments

that now

 

underpin the medical industry's call for national malpractice reform.

 

" Today, from my wheelchair, I rue that accomplishment. "

 

 

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