Why do doctors practice defensive medicine?

WhiteCoat Rants with a physician’s perspective:

Here’s the most important reason physicians practice defensive medicine to avoid lawsuits: medical malpractice judgments are arbitrary. Physicians have lost malpractice cases for giving a treatment and for failing to give the exact same treatment. Physicians have been sued for getting informed consent and failing to get informed consent. There is no set of rules that physicians can follow stating “this is the right thing to do.”

Which is why having global standards of care, that hold up in court, is the most realistic solution.