Malpractice and physician suicide

Edwin Leap with a must-read on the likelihood of physicians committing suicide after being sued:

Let’s reach out to everyone who gets sued. Give them a handshake or embrace, a friendly smile and an understanding ear. Remind them of all the good they have done, and of all the good they have yet to do. And we should tell them the stories of our own lawsuits so they won’t feel so utterly alone. As individuals and as a profession, we need to stop making malpractice litigation seem like the worst thing in the whole world of medicine. Because in the end, it’s nowhere near as horrible as having the world denied a good doctor through suicide.