<Truth / Justice / Patient
Safety>
It's a path
Recent patient safety news
Medicine's assumption that most claims are frivolous
In the March 16, 2003 magazine section of the New York Times, Abraham Verghese, M.D. suggested "sending all malpractice suits to regional panels . . . to screen and eliminate those with no merit" as a way to reduce frivolous suits. Repeatedly in medicine it is implied, and apparently believed, that most suits are frivolous. In fact most legitimate suits cannot find lawyers because they are not easy-win, big-money cases. More than 90% of cases brought to medical malpractice lawyers are rejected during the first few minutes of the first phone call (according to med mal lawyers) not because they are not legitimate, but because the odds and the payout are not attractive enough.
The panel suggested by Dr. Verghese could result in a greater number of suits if legitimacy, rather than profit, were the criterion.
Progress
Another article in the same magazine section is subtitled "The history of medicine
is a long, serpentine narrative of the death of old ideas giving way to the birth of new ones." The idea that M.D.s can police M.D.s
is one of those old ideas (see Citizen's Oversight Group). So is the idea that
healthcare professionals can be trusted to ensure patient safety. They take care of each other before they take care of patients (see loyalty) with devastating results for the patients. Click
patient safety quiz for a nearly amusing interactive explanation.
Healthcare professionals have always been regarded as the guys in the white hats. That is changing. It wouldn't have to if they would clean up their act. But they won't.
Freedom of speech for patients
It is time for the who, what, when and where (and maybe even the why) of problems in medicine to be known and discussed so that fewer patients are assaulted, raped and murdered. Healthcare workers will not report even criminal acts let alone negligence and errors, so patients have to be able to.
The banter of the bazaar is essential to safety and it is shut down by privacy laws and defamation suits and settlements. Patients need to be able to speak and learn about medicine and health care workers the same way they can about politics and politicians.
At one time it was illegal to publish anything that could bring Congress or the President into contempt or disrepute. How that squelched discussion and the flow of information finally was recognized. It now must be recognized in medicine. The well being of the public is too important to sacrifice for the comfort of healthcare workers. They will have to develop thicker skins and accept that they are not above law and criticism.
Medicine is not for doctors and nurses. It is for patients, and the safety of patients requires that patients be able to talk about their experiences without getting sued. See freedom of speech for patients.
First documentation of blacklisting?
Physicians tend to be in denial about it, but beyond the White Wall of Silence is blacklisting patients. For what might be the first documentation proving it and for how to get care in spite of it, see blacklisting patients.
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A phrase I use so much that I finally created an acronym for it consisting of the first letters of each of the first six words in the phrase:
"Because Of The Nature Of Jurisprudence in this country I cannot make statements about that."
Acronym: BOT NOJ.