Read it to believe it.
It’s not often that this blog links to Cracked, but here it is, The 6 Most Terrifying Medical Malpractice Cases Ever. (via WhiteCoat)
Among them is a psychiatric case where the doctor gave a patient, who unfortunately eventually committed suicide, “several thousand pages of sadomasochistic fantasies [in] an extensive effort to brainwash him into believing he was a child and that the doctor was his mother.”
But wait, there’s more, including, several obligatory penis mutilation scenarios and an involuntary vaginal reconstruction case thrown in for good measure.
Truly too bizarre to be made up.
Related posts:
- Fighting back against frivolous malpractice cases
- How malpractice attorneys decide which cases to accept
- Another first malpractice suit story
- "Fear of erratic jury decisions in medical malpractice cases has spawned a culture of fear"
- RIP VBAC?
- There are no winners in malpractice cases
- How malpractice cases affect physicians emotionally
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Haha, that’s great. I also read Cracked. Who would have thought it would end up on a site like this?
Nice. This should help President Obama’s mission to reign in medical malpractice lawsuits. I am sure the trial lawyers will lobby in Congress with print outs of that exact Cracked article.
Actually, they’ll probably use the NEJM study, which is the most comprehensive ever on the issue, where the author concluded:
“Some people have suggested that the system is overrun with frivolous litigation. Our findings don’t support that,” said study author David M. Studdert, an associate professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston. “The system is doing a reasonable job of channeling compensation to the right sorts of claims.”
Remember the comedian Bill Engvall?
Here’s your sign people…
Actually the romanian doctor, dr. Ciomu, ended up having to pay 500.000 Euros to the poor guy and he will never practice again. I’ve got no idea where he’s going to get the money from because he didn’t have malpractice insurance. This kind of insurance is virtually non-existent in Romania.
I know you guys probably think the US malpractice lawsuit system is over-the-top, but here, in Romania, there’s almost no such thing: this was one of the few cases in the last 20 years.
The pacient or, in the case of death, the next-of-kin is the one who has to press charges. People usually go to the hospital administration or College of Physicians, rarely to Court.
Usually when doctors screw up, their colleagues/bosses cover for them. When it really hits the fan (read: when the press finds out), there is the College of Physicians who can cut salaries for a few months or even (but rarely!) revoke licenses.
If the case goes to trial, it’s usually on criminal charges. There were but a few civil cases of malpractice and I don’t know how those ended. But rest assured, the financial compensations were not huge.
So as long as you don’t intentionally kill somebody or butcher them senseless, there are no malpractice trials in Romania.
After reading this, I’m not sure there should be a cap on malpractice. Most of these people should have gone to jail.
SkepticMD,
One thing most people don’t realize with malpractice caps is that (in most areas) there is a difference between negligence and “gross-negligence.” Most of the cases above would fall under the gross-negligence definition as the doctors knew they were causing harm (or should have).
Tort reform generally seeks to put caps on regular run of the mill “negligence”, not gross-negligence claims which will remain uncapped. Negligence covers cases where a doctor simply f*cked up. It happens, diagnoses get missed, surgeries don’t always go as planned, and other mistakes occur. Tort reform would protect doctors in these cases.
At the same time if a doctor commits gross-negligence (for example; uses an inappropriate product/drug that they have financial ties to, practices under the influence, or anything else where it can be shown they intentionally put a patient in harms way) all bets are off. Even with tort reform these individuals will be hung out to dry (as they should be).
-Dave
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