Unbelievable malpractice case

8 Jan
2004

Ross the Bloviator has a post which will make anyone shudder – Medical Malpractice: Evidence of An Imperfect System

The plaintiff’s attorney, in essence, wants to reward those physicians who are behind the curve of adopting widely-accepted principles, and punish those who follow the latest literature. In his closing argument, the attorney makes what can only be described as outrageous claims:

During closing arguments the plaintiff’s lawyer put evidence-based medicine on trial. He threw EBM around like a dirty word….He defined EBM as a cost-saving method and stated his belief that the few lives saved were not worth the money. He urged the jury to return a verdict to teach residencies not to send any more residents on the street believing in EBM.

I’m flabbergasted by this argument. Granted, it is an effective argument for its ability to tap into the current zeitgeist about the health care system — average folks losing their health care coverage, managed care companies taking away benefits to make more profits, and our system’s tendency (Don Johnson’s going to love hearing me say this) to “give the people what they want” irrespective of what the science says is appropriate. In other words, no one should stop you, members of the jury, from having Cadillac care for Hyundai prices.

On the other hand, this flys completely in the face of two central tenets of our health care system — a desire for an informed, autonomous patient who is able to effectively manage and participate in their own care, and a desire to have our health system adopt the latest medical evidence and, by doing so, improve patient safety.

At this point (and please read Ross’ entire rant), I am just as flabbergasted as he. I have argued that the current jury system cannot fairly judge most malpractice cases. This case stands as testimony to my viewpoint.

Here a jury was obviously swayed by the hyperbole, obfuscation and sophistry of an attorney. There is no verdict here based on facts.

We must fix our system. Otherwise we cannot improve medical care. This case proves (as much as any one case can prove anything) that our legal system can impede quality improvement. The medical resident and the residency practiced excellent medicine. They followed guidelines.

These cases (albeit anecdotes) have a tremendous effect on our thinking. This case is wrong, but not as wrong as the legal system which allows it!

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Related posts:

  1. We publish a case report
  2. Commentaries on malpractice
  3. Malpractice and Common Good continued
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  5. Why no malpractice reform in the current bills?

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3 Responses to Unbelievable malpractice case

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January 12th, 2004 at 10:05 am

DB: Unbelievable malpractice case
DB opines on the Bloviator’s post about a recent malpractice suit won by demonizing evidence-based medicine: Ross the Bloviator has a post which will make anyone shudder – Medical Malpractice: Evidence of An Imperfect System…These cases (albeit anecd…

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Overlawyered

January 13th, 2004 at 9:23 pm

Doctors on trial
In last week’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association ($ access), Baltimore physician David Merenstein writes about a malpractice case which resulted in a $1 million verdict against the residency program in which he was working (thoug…

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Family Medicine Notes

February 16th, 2004 at 11:46 pm

Trust
Marcus posted recently about trust.  I think he’s talking about it in the context of the physician-patient relationship .. but maybe he’s discussing it more globally. The physician-patient relationship (or the physician-parent relationship) i…