Medical Malpractice
The issue of medical malpractice and the high medical malpractice insurance premiums paid by MD’s is one the many problems facing a US healthcare system that is in a state of crisis.
As with many of the other facets of the healthcare crisis, the solution proposed for the medical malpractice situation (capping settlements) seems flawed and ill-considered.
The real problem is that a civil court is not the best place, nor are a bunch of jurors (or even a judge) , the people best suited to establish whether malpractice has occured. Nor, for that matter, is simply increasing the insurance premiums for a physician actually guilty of malpractice a satisfactory outcome.
Doctors accused of malpractice should be judged by panels of other doctors and, if found guilty of malpractice, should have their license to practice suspended or revoked. Doctors, after all, are the people who know what can be reasonably expected of a physician and are the most competent to understand the circumstances of a case involving medical procedure.
This seems like plain commonsense. So why isn’t this how malpractice cases are judged?
It is because no one at this point trusts the medical profession to police itself. Law enforcement’s “blue wall of silence” is flimsy compared to that of the medical profession. Several generations of physicians have refused to challenge even the most egregious examples of malpractice by their colleagues because they feared (with justification) that they would be ostracised within the medical community. Complaining about another doctor’s incompetence or negligence was, and is, viewed as professional suicide.
Ideally, a doctor charged with malpractice should be judged by a credible medical panel. If he is found guilty he should have his license suspended or revoked. And he (and his insurance company) should pay the actual damages to the patient (i.e. no punitive damages).
Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen given the culture of the medical community and the cynicism of the public.
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