The real world does not work that way.

It may be that he and his company are all that he says they are, but I would need some convincing.

If only .5% were being sued on, and it went to .75%, then we’re still within the numbers.

I’m no statistician, but even I can figure that out. You’d think you would be able to as well.

go to the ACOG website. they have the study posted there. Its a summary document of all the studies to date on CP and delivery procedures.

State medical boards dont adopt standards, thats not their job. Its the job of ACOG and all the professional societies to set standards. Nice strawman argument though.

Lets not be naive about CP lawsuits either. 99% of all CP lawsuits are the plaintiff claiming that the ob/gyn did one of the following:

1) failed to properly interpret fetal heart monitor readings

2) failed to order a c section within a relevant time interval

3) used forceps on the delivery which supposedly damaged the brain and caused CP

ACOG study addressed all of these aspects, taking away the need for lawsuits in 99% of CP cases.

Did CP cases drop at all after the ACOG study? Nope. Why is that? Because all this rhetoric about the courts using “standard of practice” is just pure bullshit.

The bottom line is that the only thing that determines whether a doc gets sued or not is if a “hired gun expert” can be found which disagrees with his treatment/diagnosis. It has NOTHING to do AT ALL with “violating a standard” like the trial lawyers like to claim

So can you direct me to where I can find that the state medical boards have all adopted these standards?

That’s a great story about ACOG. And it illustrates yet again how poor your analytical abilities are. ACOG concluded the “vast majority” of CP cases aren’t caused by malpractice. OK. So how many CP malpractice suits are won v. how many cases of CP are there?

If you haven’t seen the evidence in any of Edwards’ cases, how do you know they are not in the tiny MINORITY of cases that ACOG admits ARE caused by malpractice? Do you know anything at all about his cases other than some of them involved CP? Of course not. Yet you form an opinion without knowing any of these facts that most CP cases aren’t legit.

And ACOG didn’t put out any guidelines or standards of care in that study. It was just a survey.

Standard of care = evidence based medicine.

One person does not set a standard. One expert witness does not set a standard. The medical community at large sets a standard and that standard is EBM.

Here’s a great example of how the courts/lawyers ignore “standard of care” and EBM to suit their own cause.

John Edwards made a killing by sueing ob/gyns for cerebral palsy. His claim was that cerebral palsy is caused by improper delivery procedures (i.e. use of forceps, failure to do c-section based on fetal heart rate monitors, etc).

The ACOG (American College of Obstetrics/Gynecology) looked at CP studies in detail. They looked at all the available evidence and concluded that the vast majority of CP has nothing to do with labor/delivery procedures. They furthermore concluded taht most CP cases occur early in pregnancy.

Now certainly that constitutes a standard of care regarding CP cases. This is the ACOG, the EXPERT BODY of ob/gyn medicine.

Surely the lawyers paid heed right? You would expect that CP lawsuits would drop because of this new standard of care that was developed.

But of course thats not what happened. CP cases actually INCREASED SLIGHTLY after the ACOG came out with its report. As usual, hired gun experts will say whatever they get paid to say in court.

You obviously haven’t had to work alongside a physician during or after a lawsuit. I know this will offend some people, but it’s like being around somebody after they’ve been violently assaulted. There’s a form of PTSD. Sued physicians grind to a halt; they can’t practice medicine anymore, they no longer trust the patients they are seeing. In my field (emergency medicine) once you’ve been sued you can’t discharge anyone from the emergency department without a Cat Scan or an AMA form.

1. A article was published in the April JAMA of the same year that refuted the initial 1st person account. The authors interviewed the judge and several jurors.

2. As I have debated, the evidence on PSA is ambiguous. Even then, the recommendation is against general population screening. It is mainly based on the cost trade-off. Have you read the USPTF recommendation.

3. Even the USPTF doesn’t suggest targetted screening is unwarranted. We have no idea what other risk factors there might have been.

4. Once the case was in trial, the lawyer chooses a strategy to optimize their chances of success. That proves nothing about that particular lawyers opinion about EBM a priori.

5. Even with all the problems above, you still want to generalize a single one-sided anecdotal account by the sued physician (who incidentally was exonerated and paid nothign) to the entire legal profession.

God, what a turnip you are.