There really are few firm statistics from nonpartisan sources on the issue. I would bet the insurers have the most detailed information, but they’re not about to give unfettered access to their databases.

True. And it goes the same way with most of the “statistics” used by tort reform proponents. When lobbyists use statistics, whether you agree with their position or not, you should always apply a healthy bit of skepticism.

And doctors can lie and not note their actions in the chart and the patient will never know what caused their problems. Still, you don’t, or shouldn’t, make policy based on sketchy anecdotal evidence.

Every thing you do as a doctor can drastically affect someone’s life and you’re liable for all those effects. Patients can lie and not follow directions and if something goes wrong, they can sue. It’s not a big deal to lawyers, but I’m sure most of them haven’t been sued.

I am a lawyer in Texas who has happened upon this site, and although most of the conversation here is very insightful and well-said, the undertone above has been, is now, and always will be a continuing conflict between those who practice law and those who practice medicine. And, it hides the real bad guy in the whole scenario, which is the malpractice carrier.

“Tort Reform” in Texas has killed medical malpractice. The maximum cap is $250,000. For most lawyers, with the amount of expert testimony (because no medical expert works for free), combined with the cap on damages, means that it is EXTREMELY difficult to take on a med-mal case.

Now, I know the readers here are thinking “Good! Just what I want!”

What you don’t know is the the medmal premiums have not fallen as a result of the severe drop in medmal claims. So basically, the insurance company is pocketing the doctors’ premiums, while the patients, who have suffered terrible loss at the hands of gross negligence, cannot seek any justice for the wrong done to them and their families.

A suit for malpractice is the only way that those wronged by a professional can truly recover their damages. It’s a fact of life that professionals need this insurance to protect themselves from their mistakes. Doctors do, lawyers do, CPAs do.

Giving victimized clients / patients a single course of action of hoping that the powers that be in the professional community punish the negligent professional is unreasonable and unjust.

And some people here won’t even give an apology.

I think you are guilty of selection bias here. The really egregious errors never come before a jury because they’re generally settled out of court. The cases that *do* end up before a jury tend to be more equivocal in nature – differing interpretations of medical judgment, parties who refuse to settle because they’re convinced they’re right, and so on.

It’s not really known how many people who’ve sustained a medical injury end up suing, but the best estimates available are that it’s fewer than 10 percent. It would be interesting to know why this is; is it because these patients/families haven’t been told the truth?

So no, jury verdicts are really not any indication; they are merely a tiny slice of the overall picture which you are inflating to suit your argument.

I really don’t know why you people continue to quibble over the IOM numbers. That’s like quibbling that The Gulag Archipelago grossly overstated the number of people that Stalin killed; it wasn’t 10 million, it was really 1 million, blah blah blah. Even if 25,000 or 10,000 patients die from preventable medical errors in the U.S. every year, that’s still way too many.

I’m trying to figure out why you claim, on the one hand, that we don’t have accurate data on how many patients are injured by errors each year… yet on the other hand the injury rate has been decreasing over the years. How do we know it’s decreasing if we don’t have accurate data?

Are doctors really scratching their heads wondering why patient trust is so low?