Delaware is discussing whether Good Samaritan physicians should be granted immunity. Predictably, there is opposition from the trial lawyers:
Imagine that a doctor operates on the wrong patient due to a mix-up. Perhaps she operates on the correct patient, but removes the wrong leg.Or a doctor is under the influence of drugs or alcohol while delivering a baby, and causes injury or death to the mother or child. Or that a psychiatrist rapes his patient during a therapy session.
In every one of these situations, and even more egregious examples, if the doctor was a volunteer during a state of emergency, he or she would be immune from any liability to the victim if House Bill 134 becomes law.
As well as this letter – I’ll let it speak for itself:
Is this really about doctors’ fear of being sued, or is it about doing favors for insurance companies that have been paid premiums but will not have to pay out the claims if this state legislation passes?Residents should pay attention because their rights are being taken away. If this legislation passes, taxpayers also will pay for the care of those injured instead of insurance companies that are shielded from paying.
After Sept. 11, 2001, lawyers all over the country volunteered to represent victims of the attacks. Not one of them asked for immunity.
(via a reader tip)
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“If you stop to help someone and your help falls below the standard of care, why shouldn’t you have to pay for the resulting damage?”
Because if i’m at risk for lawsuit when I’m away from work (since all I do is cover my ass from lawsuits while i’m at work) there is no chance in utter hell i’m stopping to help someone if it means i’m at risk for even more lawsuits. They could bleed to death for all I care, that’s preferable to having some greedy asshole stand in court and tell me what a bad doctor I am.
The greedy ashole, you speak about, would be unequivically correct!
If it happenned, he also would end up walking his kids to work one day and find a steak knife prtrudig form his left eye. It;s time we fight back against this one- sided rape.
“I have never seen so many Lawyer phobic doctors any where before. I’m glad every action in my life is not made on the fact that I have such fears of attroneys.”
Tell you what walk I mile in our shoes. Go to med school, residency, then work in medicine for awhile. Then I think you will have a clue as to what is going on in this profession. Otherwise your is just an uninformed opinion.
If I’m the one lying on the ground bleeding, I’d rather have the drunk doctor stop to help than walk on by.
Jerry, I am with you. Sometimes people seem to loose perspective.
“It;s time we fight back against this one- sided rape.”
Sometimes I feel like we physicians are like suicide bombers…we are getting raped by the trial lawyers and litigious patients and have no way to fight back other than to order unnecessary tests, unecessary referrals, waste patients time and copay money, and just bankrupt the whole system…
“If you stop to help someone and your help falls below the standard of care, why shouldn’t you have to pay for the resulting damage?”
In other words, why not let the lawyers loot as many pockets as they can, deep ones preferably? That seems to be the tort lawyer position. Consider gasman’s comment: no help with immunity versus help with immunity, how is a victim worse off? Forget “standard of care.” In an on-the-street situation which may be uncontrolled and where improvisation with little information may be all that is possible, no practitioner is working under any of the conditions where ordinary professional standards are kept. Why should my BLS or Heimlich be held to a higher standard than a layman? I am not working in a doctor-patient basis as I would in my practice.
This article and discussion reminds me why I as a physician don’t stop at accident sites any more if anyone else has already stopped.
Anonymous wrote:
“In other words, why not let the lawyers loot as many pockets as they can, deep ones preferably? That seems to be the tort lawyer position.”
I have a friend who went to NYU law school who described his tort law classes as exactly that: go after the deepest pockets.
Let’s cut through the BS and understand what’s really going on.
The dream of lawyers is to impose joint and several liability on the entire country. They know that this is the only way to really expand their business. Universal joint and several liability will generate the necessary billable hours and wealth transfer to keep lawyers (and their DemoRAT supporters) happy.
This medical immunity for emergency care is simply one of those roadblocks to the lawyers’ dream. Naturally, they fear the loss of income so they fight it.
Certainly, these lawyers dress their self-serving agenda in noble rhetoric, usually the rhetoric of “protecting” the public from “bad” doctors. No one, of course, should be fooled by this.
The next time some scumbag lawyer tells you doctors that only a small percentage of the “bad” apples are affected by their litigiousness, ask them why they are so against “loser pays” legal systems like the one they have in other first world countries. After all, loser pays only filters out the “bad” or “meritless” lawsuits. If they’re such vaunted supporters of the “rule of law”, then why can’t they trust their billable hours or contingency payouts to the swift and sure justice and wisdom of our legal system?
If their cases are likely to win based on the merit of their claims against a defendant, then they have no reason to fear a loser pays system.
“In an on-the-street situation which may be uncontrolled and where improvisation with little information may be all that is possible, no practitioner is working under any of the conditions where ordinary professional standards are kept.”
You misunderstand the meaning of “standard of care”. It would correspond to the changed conditions. The very definition of the term contemplates that. The physician in rural Mississippi is not held to the same standard as the one at Johns Hopkins.
There already is loser pays in most states. the belief that loser pays will change anything is a foolish one.
Wow, a lot of unhinged ranting back and forth. For what it’s worth, I’m a trauma surgeon — I also have professional liability insurance that only covers me at work. As someone who will be held to a higher standard of care than even an EMT/paramedic with less in the way of equipment and no insurance, it would take a lot to push me to render aid. Blood and broken bones — no. People stuck in a burning car — yeah.
Wow – not all lawyers are megajerks.
My husband has a small private practice. Trust me, I work full time as a nurse, we are not millionaires.
He does not do medical malpractice.
For what he does do, which are personal injury cases (small ones that firms won’t take), will and trusts and pro bono work for the elderly, would you believe he pays over $8,000 a year in malpractice insurance.
Did you know lawyers can get sued for malpractice, too?
The are some major slimeballs out there in the legal profession. Believe me, sometimes my husband has to deal with them.
Just like there are some pretty awful doctors that I have come across in almost 30 years.
I understand the bitterness when we in the medical/nursing profession are forced to watch our back with every move.
But I’d still help at the scene. I haven’t lost that much faith in humanity yet.
In the USA no physician should act as a Good Samaritan under any circumstance.
Why are you a physician to begin with? If it is for money your motivation was completely misplaced to begin with, but you aren’t the kind to stop for others anyway. You deserve to face the threat of lawyers.
If you are a true physician (let the reader decide), you need time off so that you can help the patients who come to see you. If you are walking down the street on your time off, let others who work in EMS take care of the patient.
The general population is unquestionably disconnected from physical reality. As physicians we are alone in the world. Take some time to think about that.
Carefully screen your new patients, do not take it lightly. Build relationships with those who understand we are here to heal and otherwise they can let nature take its course without us.
Drop your malpractice insurance and self-insure with a group of physicians you respect. Together build a fund so that in the rare chance you get sued you can hire a bigger shark than the attorney fighting against you. Or are you more comfortable with your lifestyle than you are upholding your principles?
Never compromise patient care and always admit human mistake.
When you get sued NEVER settle. NEVER back down because a lawyer is standing in front of you.
Otherwise, just shut up.
I hesitate to even post, given the vitriol. But I am compelled, as a healthcare provider and (gasp!) an attorney, to add my thoughts and try to insert some logic into the emotion.
Immunity makes sense in the context of disaster services and providing care voluntarily, as a Good Samaritan. Immunity benefits society, by encouraging those with training to assist those in need. Properly drafted, immunity statutes protect against those “horror stories” because the immunity is not available for gross negligence or wilful and wanton misconduct. And NO-ONE, physician, lawyer, minister or whatever, should be immune from responsibility for reckless, willfully improper behavior. Providing care alongside a road, in a cornfield, or even on the floor of the bathroom at a neighbor’s house is a totally different environment than the environment in which most physicians practice. On top of poor lighting, lack of space and often risky surroundings, equipment commonly relied on is not available. These differences greatly impact the care that can be given – and should be taken into account in determining whether an action rises (falls?) to the level that immunity should not attach.
America has a great tradition of neighbor helping neighbor, and law should support that. Well-drafted laws can address liability and licensure issues, and can help assure that when a disaster strikes, medical help can be offered. We need to support and encourage volunteerism by healthcare providers, not discourage them. Immunity is an important part of this.
As an aside, not all lawyers are “out to get” doctors, and not all lawyers chase the almighty buck – just as not all doctors behave as badly as some headlines might suggest. Some of us sit in offices drafting contracts; some of us try to help find collaborative ways to create positive outcomes. We are individuals, and we deserve to be recognized as such.
I have read every single posts here and i wonder aloud what is happening to this world.
I am not yet a doctor. But being a final year medical student in the UK it just horrifies me that medical practice has come to such a stage.
I am in no way meaning to condemn any doctors in the above posts stating they are not going to stop and help on the road side, but i remember the first day in my clinical teaching our hospital dean told us that we are now regarded as someone with medical knowledge, and have the responsibility to help in any emergency situation. He put it bluntly, if u were found out to be a medic and not helped on the scene, u get ur ass fried by the GMC (General Medical Council).
I guess it must mean something when someone who spends a good 8 years of studying to become a doctor so that he can help people, felt so threatened that he wud rather leave the injured to die on the street. Any lawyer who is reading this shud really have a long hard look in the mirror and asks himself why.
I feel sorry for doctors in the states and at the same time fear that my future practice wud one day become as such. Please keep your litigious culture to your side of the Atlantic.
But for now, I will be the first one to stop and help at the scene, be it on the plane, on the road or wherever.
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