Let’s say that a surgeon comes into the ER drunk and tries to perform a routine gallbladder removal on your eighty-year-old with a pair of forceps. He kills her. I hope that we can all agree this is malpractice, right?

So you go to a lawyer to sue the bastard. Guess what? He’ll send you home. Because you didn’t lose any money on Grandma; your only damages are the sentimental loss of her companionship and her presence, aka “non-economic damages”.

And your lawyer operates on a contingency fee. That means he has to front your lawsuit until there is a recovery–a FINAL recovery, not just a verdict in your favor. The cost-benefit analysis doesn’t make it worth his while, and you sure can’t afford to pay him out of pocket for years of lawsuit.

I get that you’re angry, but what did you think you were going to be suing for? “I want to punish them” is not a basis for a lawsuit, nor is “somebody sued me”. The lawyers who turned you down didn’t do so because of omerta; they did so because they did not believe that you had a case that could be won.

And this is how I spent a year of my life. In hiding, afraid of patients and people. Afraid of special delivery letters and unknowing people asking me if I am Dr X, for that is how I was served the papers. I became a recluse. The marriage and family suffered.

Why? The plaintiff alleged that even though I diagnosed the problem, and I took the proper steps to treat the problem, I just didn’t do it fast enough. Despite moving the plaintiff upstairs ahead of sicker but stable(for now) patients. Despite calling every other hospital in the area for help. Despite the fact the patient was only in the ER for 4 hours total, in a place that sees 200 a day and is at best short staffed, has a 100% occupancy, and other patients were admitted and waiting for up to 18 hr.

And after a year of this torture, I was dismissed from the lawsuit.

After it was over, I was angry. I tried to find a lawyer that would sue the plaintiff and their lawyers, but I ran into that brick wall of brotherhood that all you lawyers have.
(and accuse us of having). No one would take the case. Even if I paid cash for their services!!

So, I have one question. While you lawyers are galavanting around claiming to selflessly protect patients and rights and such, who protects me from you?

And why would lawyers be against this? Probably for money. The are hired mercenaries and know they can sully and bully a physician by threatening a lawsuit and his/her reputation, forcing or encouraging a settlement.

I can’t think of any good argument that a lawyer could pose against this idea. It is self-regulating…. Wait, lawyers don’t self regulate! They protect each other just like they claim physician do.

I was sued by a lawyer for a patient that came into the er with vaginal bleeding. She was a drug addict and while we were waiting for a operating room to open up. For some reason the gun shot needed to go first, she pulled out her own IV and walked out of the ER wearing the ER gown.

I then was sued because 2 months later she developed a pelvic infection. Really that was my fault?

Yes I won the case, but that was ridiculous and how much time was spent by me and 4 other faculty doctors to get that case to be done was ridiculous and none of it was compensated by the drug addict or the lawyer who sued.

I appreciate that the cases you took were not like this, but I see a lot more from the other side, and I understand that there are a lot of lawyers, and they all need to work, but some of these cases need to have punitives done to the person bringing them. ( bit of a run on sentence there, but then I don’t have to write briefs)

However, it’s probably not true that all trauma patients should be presumed incompetent, and should lose the right to refuse a rectal exam or other testing.

And a sort of side issue is, the rectal examine really is of limited utility, if the evidence of that utility is reviewed. There are other ways to evaluate spinal trauma that will probably be a part of any thorough examination, when there is a high index of suspicion of spinal trauma.

Now, what if the doctor had said within the earshot of many ” I’m gonna teach this SOB a lesson”, or on previous occasions announced his intention to do unecessary rectals on any drunky-druggy-combative-irritating patient, to educate them of the risks of arriving in his ER with an attitude.

Obviously, the law has to allow remedy. The guy in this case got a chance to argue, and appropriately lost. I can’t say that’s a malpractice crisis, or a legal one.

I propose that a judge be added to the trauma team to rule on competency while we resuscitate a patient. Hopefully the judge will not retire to make the decision, because preforming CPR for that length of time may have a deleterious effect on the patient.

(And what if the judge rules the patient was competent in refusing CPR before his heart stopped and the competency decision was rendered?. A punitive rectal exam for all the doctors and staff?)

And you wonder why doctors become suicidal.

No medical malpractice crisis here!

My point is that any one can sue any one any time without any recourse of action. Sue me if I do the rectal. Sue me if I don’t.

Gosh, as far as I’m concerned, emergency medicine equates to military medicine. If physicians are going to be second guessed for every split second decision they make, the ememrgency system would be bogged down and it would be an issue of national security.

oh, wait, the system has already been bogged down by ridiculous lawsuit lotto.