db's Medical Rants

I periodically feature malpractice on this blog, but I certainly focus as much on other issues. This new blog (thanks to Kevin MD for the “heads-up) focuses solely on malpractice. This makes me sick!!. It makes the cut and gets added to my links!
viagra
free viagra
buy viagra online
generic viagra
how does viagra work
cheap viagra
buy [...]

Medical Malpractice: Yes on I-330
Earlier this year I found myself staring at my computer screen reading and re-reading an e-mail I did not want to send. I knew that once I clicked “submit” I would be locked into a path that I didn’t want to go down, because at the end of it I would [...]

Global look at tort struggles offers glimpse of reform options (membership required)
Physicians around the world say the medical liability system is faltering in a number of countries, hobbled by high premiums in some places, hindered by ineffective approaches in others.
Medical leaders, attorneys and others traveled from as far as Australia, Kenya and South Africa to [...]

A reader sent me this link. Malpractice ‘specialty courts’ a threat
THE Seventh Amendment right to a fair and impartial jury of one’s peers has been described as “the essence of justice.” But now the medical establishment wants to tip the scales of justice by replacing our constitutionally guaranteed right to trial by jury with [...]

Hidden Costs of the Liability Crisis
This links to a short blog entry. The author (a substitute at the Point of Law) contends that malpractice carriers should do more to encourage high quality standards. The implication is that improved quality will lead to less malpractice.
His hypothesis is very interesting, however, in internal medicine I [...]

Costly Insurance Fuels Defensive Medicine, but Not Relocation
In May 2003, Dr. David M. Studdert, from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues surveyed 824 Pennsylvania-based physicians who worked in six specialties at high risk of litigation (emergency medicine, general surgery, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, obstetrics/gynecology, and radiology). Pennsylvania was chosen because of dramatically rising [...]

I will never leave this issue – because this is the real solution to malpractice.
Let Doctors Think Like Doctors
“Special health courts might let doctors think more like doctors again and less like lawyers,” said Daniel Henninger, Deputy Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, endorsing Common Good’s proposal on the Nightly Business Report (WPBT-TV, [...]

One pleasure of blogging comes from the comments we receive. GruntDoc has received numerous comments (many from one lawyer) on a recent malpractice rant – Texas MedMal in the News
Having a lawyer and a law student in the family, I often have discussions about the differing viewpoints that our professions take on issues. [...]

I know my spam filter is all screwed up. It thought Rangel was a porn site or something (insert huge grin).
Chris makes this important comment:
Another benefit of special medical courts would be that they could be set up in each state thus bypassing the Constitutional problem of over-reaching Federal power which is generally limited [...]

Common Good directed me to this interesting column about malpractice. The author believes that President Bush has missed an opportunity to propose truly creative solutions:
Better Justice: Bush’s Missed Opportunity
As I believe this link will degenerate over time, I will quote liberally:
Unless radically revised, the malpractice bill will once again die in the Senate because [...]

Medical lawsuit diagnosis
When a friend told me recently he was to undergo a painful medical procedure to see if he has cancer, it reminded me of a time years ago when I faced a similar prospect. The testing in my case would have painful and risked infection.
Fortunately, it was a two-part [...]

A Push in States to Curb Malpractice Costs
As state legislative sessions open across the country this week, Republican governors and lawmakers in many states are mounting major campaigns to control medical malpractice insurance premiums by limiting civil litigation.
In Georgia, Missouri, Washington and more than a dozen other states, Republican legislators have made malpractice premiums a [...]

The AMA has this issue “spot on”. Delegates target courts for liability reform expansion
Doctors believe that setting stricter parameters for who is allowed to testify in the courtroom and what information is allowed before a jury can help alleviate some of the medical liability insurance problems they’ve seen.
“Holding these experts accountable is both necessary [...]