http://medicalerrortalk.blogspot.com

This blog is aimed for physicians who may anonymously post comments about medical errors that they or their colleagues may have committed; the idea is to generate a discussion about the error, what can be learned from it, and how it may be prevented in the future. Given the debate about medical error-reporting in the US and how it may impact physician compensation through performance scales that are based on rate of medical errors, it is critical that we as a physician community learn from each other through open discourse about our medical errors, especially if they resulted in complications for the patient. The ultimate goal of this medical forum is to improve patient care.

Every physician makes mistakes during his/her lifetime, which if not discussed openly for the sake of educating others in our field, will continue to happen over and over again with varying consequences to our patients. Lets make an attempt to stop that cycle using this forum.

That statement is really a key to the malpractice issue. Errors are going to happen. Combined with success/failure rates per the procedure you are faced with an emotional outcome in the end, regardless the circumstances. Joy and merriment when the child is healed. Mental anguish, pain and anger when things go wrong. It’s the business of healing and unfortunately, not everyone is going to be healed. Turning that pain, anger and anguish into excessive dollars seems like it will help. It doesn’t.

I like the idea of independent review boards, but who regulates them? There’s still the question of standards. Would these boards follow USPSTF recommendations?

Actually, it sounds like lawsuits are bourne out of the public’s desire for full disclosure.

In regards to the WJS article on caps: “It proves that the lawyers ought to be taken out of the loop and an independent review board appointed to handle claims. A no-fault system for compensation, coupled with a professional review for systems and personnel problems. It would be much more effective.”

Anyway, I’d make one comment on the reader’s letter, and that concerns this :

“I do know that all physicians would want their child treated with every possible test – no matter what the cost.”This is simply, plainly and completely untrue. An incredible myth, but one of those beliefs that is very hard to dispel where outsiders are concerned. No doctor I know of does this: certainly in my own case I cannot think of a single – not one single occasion, where I investigated my kids illnesses more agressively than a patient.

The reason for this is simple. Doctors investigate excessively these days not because they don’t know what’s going on, but because they believe it is for their own legal protection. When a diagnosis is reasonably clear, a doctor investigates further for one purpose only – to “cover ones’ a**”. The excessive investigation will not likely harm us, will not cost us anything, and will likely help us against the unscrupulous; but it may inconvenience and sometimes harm the patient (since anything you do in medicine has risks), and definitely “harms” healthcare costs.

No doctor wants to do this at all, but the insane legal climate has forced this to happen.

With our own kids, there is just no way we’ll subject them to over-investigation (ie. any investigation over the minimum required to establish a diagnosis), because our kids aren’t just waiting to sue.

It’s so sad, but sometimes I think that more and more, the true, benevolent doctor-patient relationship increasingly exists only between doctors and their families/friends, where care is based on what is judged the very best for the patient’s well-being, not on what is thought will best hold up in a law court.