Medical Malpractice and Healthcare
How Frivolous Lawsuits Affect the Way Doctors Provide Patient Care
Excessive medical malpractice lawsuits can negatively affect the way doctors care for patients. One possible solution is tort reform.
Today’s consumers consider health care as an exact science with guaranteed results. When the results fall short, a medical malpractice suit may follow. This brings about an important point: Is medicine a science or an art?
Medical Malpractice Suits on the Rise
Doctors and patients cling to the notion of truth and knowledge in the medical profession, striving for clear-cut outcomes like the cure of disease. However, one might more realistically describe the diagnosis and treatment of a patient as a delicate dance between doctor and patient, fraught with potential for missteps. A tentative offering of symptoms from a meek patient can cause a doctor to discount the severity of those symptoms. Conversely, a patient who feels his good health makes him immune to danger may ignore a doctor’s recommendation for medicine or rest. Either of these situations can lead to a lawsuit.
The first recorded malpractice case was in England in 1374 involving a surgeon who mistreated a wound. Although the medical profession has come a long way since the fourteenth century, there are still many uncertainties inherent in the healing profession, and these uncertainties can lead to medical malpractice lawsuits.
Historically, the availability of medical care and doctor visits was sparse until the mid-twentieth century, and treatment was inferior to today’s level of care. Therefore, patients were more appreciative of any care or comfort the doctor could provide. Patients’ expectations of doctoring have progressed with technology and today many Americans argue that access to health care is a right, not a luxury.
Perfection in medicine isn’t always possible, no matter how closely doctors follow patients and keep up with the literature. Medicine, like all disciplines, usually advances incrementally rather than by leaps and bounds. The public, who is unaware of the decades of research that may precede a breakthrough shown on the news, will continue to expect miracle pills and omniscient service from their doctors. When this isn’t forthcoming, patients and their family members expect someone to pay.
Frivolous Lawsuits Adversely Affect Care
Although patients may lament the decline of the doctor-patient relationship, doctors view this decline from the other side of the coin. Doctors in high-litigation fields of medicine, like obstetrics, must practice under the constant threat of being second-guessed. When doctors experience a frivolous medical malpractice lawsuit, they may feel that they can no longer fully trust their patients. This can cause doctors to treat patients with less confidence, or even lead to defensive medicine, where doctors perform tests or offer drugs that aren’t medically necessary to ward off potential litigation.
Tort Reform
A potentially patient- and doctor-friendly solution in our litigious society is tort reform. Some lawyers take advantage of a situation where government is incapable of enacting meaningful legislation to protect consumer rights. Lawyers have stepped in to enact this supposedly beneficial change. Tort reform may reduce the abundance of lawsuits and exorbitant settlements. However, one of the obstacles to tort reform is the fact that many lobbyists and legislators are also lawyers, with a stake in maintaining the status quo.
Related article: How Your Doctor Can Avoid Getting Sued
Sources:
Manos, T.J. (1998). Take Half an Aspirin and Call Your HMO in the Morning—Medical Malpractice in Managed Care: Are HMOs Practicing Medicine Without a License? University of Miami Law Review, 53, 195-240.
Rosser, M.J. (1999). Practice Guidelines and Tort Reform: The Legal System Confronts the Technocratic Wish. Journal of Health Politics, Policy, & Law, 24, 275-304.
