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| Home > Myths > we need malpractice litigation because doctors don't police themselves |
| we need malpractice litigation because doctors don't police themselves | | Date Created: Nov 14, 2005, 04:00 PM |
The myth that doctors don't police themselves and therefore we need malpractice litigation is self serving (the plaintiff attorneys make huge money off the US tort litigation system that includes malpractice litigation), hypocritical (lawyers don't remotely police themselves any better), and wrong (malpractice litigation wasn't intended to police doctors and it doesn't do it in any kind of efficient manner). Further, it's not true that doctors don't police themselves. One of the main reasons they don't (or can't) is lawyers.
Here's a recent example of a statement that if from an intelligent, concerned individual who believes this myth:
comments are in [ ].
I think we DO all have dogs in this hunt.
It seems to me that a key change we need to see is
STRONG DISCIPLINE of ERRANT DOCTORS.
[This is as big a myth as the "90,000 deaths caused by medical mistakes yearly" and would suggest to me that you don't know how such things work, how errant doctors are disciplined now, and are buying into this myth that the plaintiff attorneys use to justify their tort litigation extortion game in the US.
First of all, malpractice litigation, a subset of tort litigation, was never intended to police doctors and it doesn't remotely function as such. The problems of policing or disciplining a profession like medicine are not fundamentally different from policing or disciplining lawyers. Where are the calls for "STRONG DISCIPLINE OF ERRANT" LAWYERS? If a doctor or lawyer breaks the law then it's a criminal case and should be prosecuted as such. Tort litigation is in the civil side of the judiciary system. It's designed to resolve disputes where someone feels they've been harmed by the (non-contractual) actions of another and the courts are better to resolve the dispute than fighting in the streets.
Professionals typically police themselves by professional ethics and organizations that can discipline their members. Doctors have this just as lawyers do. The other form of discipline is by state licensing. Doctors have to be licensed to practice in a given state and lawyers have to be a member of the bar in each state they practice in. Contrary to conventional "wisdom" such as yours, state medical boards actually do a rather good job of dealing with this responsibility, at least in Colorado. I don't know about the state bars but I doubt they do a better job of it.
The other place that doctors are disciplined is by hospitals. This is different and more involved for doctors than for lawyers. Basically doctors have to have privileges to practice (there are different levels) in a hospital. There are proof of training requirements, QA committees, discipline committees, and various requirements doctors have to live up to. There is much less of this if the doctor practices in an office only. This is where the good old boys network sometimes operates because doctors overseeing doctors can be too collegial or they can be too vindictive (usually because of competition). The state or non-doctors performing this function has not worked and wouldn't work for lawyers either. The answer is to get doctors who are not paid enough to make a career of it and have no vested interest in the outcome of disciplining a doctor. The problem is the lawyers who want to have it both ways and will "zealously advocate" for their doctor client and keep them in practice or even go after the disciplining doctors if need be. This doesn't work in reverse for lawyers disciplining other lawyers.
In general, doctors are already disciplined probably better and more thoroughly than lawyers and "errant doctors" is not as big a problem as it's made out to be. Most doctors I know would be happy to donate time to advise judges or discipline doctors if it wasn't someone they knew and the lawyers could be kept out of it.]
Yes, the policing can be done by experts who know medicine. but we can't have what is now the case: medical doctors having rules in place which, out of sympathy for their fellow physicians, they don't enforce.
[Again, grossly exaggerated and no different than lawyers, probably less so. Where's your evidence for this problem and the effectiveness of some alternative?]
Given the lack of real self policing, medical malpractice lawsuits need to be allowed.
[The "lack of real self policing" is a myth perpetrated by the plaintiff's bar and their enablers like liberal politicians, the media, and "consumer advocate" groups like Public Citizen who are financed by the trial lawyers. And even if it were true, medical malpractice lawsuits aren't set up to police doctors, they don't do this in reality, and there is really no connection between the two except to justify the extortionist US tort litigation system that allowed people like John Edwards to make a fortune and become a liberal politician. On the other hand, I'm not advocating eliminating malpractice lawsuits. That would not be possible or reasonable. What I'm advocating is taking the financial incentive out of tort litigation and separating it both physically and in the public's mind from policing doctors.] |
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