I’m a first year medical student and I have to say that you’re a better doctor/man than I’ll ever be because you were able to go right back to treating your patients even during the whole ordeal. These situations make me see the worse in humanity and my idealistic altruism that I entered medical school with dims every time I read stories like yours, and reminds me that for every person I treat in the future, I will have to remember that there is a Grinch with his future client out there.

I completely understand that you cannot give out the cause of the patient’s death. However, would it be possible to come up with something else that is on the same zebra/unique scale? Just something that would let us “in the business” know about how arcane was the issue? Like a “nec fasc” or a “RLQ pain from a diverticulitis in a previously undiagnosed situs inversus” or another rarely encountered condition?

I, also, still wonder what it was, just because that could be the next thing rolling through my door, or some other as equally charged bomb waiting to explode.

I personally think you were very, very lucky. I once served as a juror in a malpractice case which ended up with a hung jury. Believe it or not, all of us (the jurors) thought the doctor performed his surgery and the rest of his patient care flawlessly. But, the reason for the hung jury was that half of the jurors felt sorry for the defendant and that is why they could not cast their vote for the doctor.

As I recall, since these types of cases are not criminal cases, you do not need all twelve jurors to agree, just about eight of them. It scares me to think that if just two more of us went with our emotions that doctor would have lost his career despite the fact that everyone thought he had performed his duties to the best of this abilites.

Like your laywers told you, it is all a show. It doesn’t matter really what happened, instead its the impression which you give to the jurors that matters. And that is a scary thing to know.

don’t play dumb. you have heard it all before (health courts, no fault review and compensation systems, etc) but lawyers enjoy and benefit from the current systme far too much.

No costs? I recently finished a court trial. It was postponed twice, then took 8 weeks so I lost 3 months of income. Oh, and since my partnership is self insured then the costs do come from the partnership. And, Oh by the way, the first 15k of defense cost comes from the doctor partner alone. Your ignorance never seems to embarass you though.

I agree that CAlif. 250K cap does not do much except help independent insurers. If I am contemplating a test that is mostly defensive I don’t think “I don’t need to do it because there is a 250k cap”. No, wo what I think is right for the patient but also keeps me out of a lawsuit. The 250 cap is irrelevent. It does not seem to deter lawyers from filing dumb claims so it has no effect on reducing healthcare costs.

While one can argue that rate increases moderated (although since rates “moderated” nationwide, regardless of “reform”, that’s questionable), there’s no evidence that any “savings” were passed on to the healthcare consumer. Tort reform is not a new issue – if those savings existed, the reformers would be shouting them from the tops of buildings. As to the savings to Ohio physicians, without more data about their insurers’ investment returns, their loss reserves, etc., it’s impossible to say what actually caused rates to decline. For example, in the 90s, rates were flat or declining as companies actually underpriced premiums because they were making the difference up on the float. Then the market crashed, and the float went with it, thus premiums readjusted. This is not a new occurrence, as there have been cries of crisis in every decade’s stock market crash. Further, since tort reform doesn’t guarantee any rate declines, there’s nothing to keep the insurers from jacking the rates back up. However, the injured patient is still screwed regardless.

California has had a hard cap of $250K on noneconomic damages, the most common type of tort reform, and consumers aren’t seeing significant savings. In fact, despite all the promises of what tort reform is supposed to do, California is a healthcare disaster.

Incidentally, I noted this in the Ohio press release you cited:

“In other words, there was a 20 percent reduction in overall claims from 2005 to 2006 and a 24 percent reduction in claims resulting in a payment.

Additionally, the 2005 data revealed that claims subject to the new tort reform law had indemnity payments nearly $100,000 less than claims not subject to the new law.”

Is this a good thing by itself since we don’t know the legitimacy of any of the claims? Simply because the insurer paid less does not necessarily mean that was good for anyone other than insurer. After all, the care still has to be administered, so now instead of the responsible party paying for their harm, the cost is likely shifted to the taxpayer if it’s a significant injury.