# DoctorsKnowUs.com: Helping Doctors Blacklist Patients **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 5, 2004, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692 "2004-03-05T13:49:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/21 "2004-03-05T17:51:45Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > The Texas malpractice cap that’s been mentioned several times before in this thread. I think it’s misguided, but that it’s definately evidence that change has happened and can happen in the future. Bah, that’s a finger in the dike. I bet that spawned even more lawsuits attacking that ruling :rolleyes: We need to address the culture, not throw Band-Aids on festering sores. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/22 "2004-03-05T18:10:11Z")
Well, assuming that this is indeed a blacklist, I have to look at it from this perspective: Is it better to have litigious patients go without medical care, or for entire communities go without medical care because a combination of unfounded lawsuits and ever-rising malpractice premiums has driven the only doctor in the area out of the state? That’s the scenario some places are looking at these days, and in that case, I say fuck 'em. Better for one person to have difficulty finding a doctor than for the rest of the county. The good of the many, etc. On a personal note, far better for you to not be able to find a doctor for your son because you filed a frivolous suit than for my mother not to be able to find a doctor because your suit drove him out of business. And let’s face it, medical practice is a business. Doctors are selling their time, expertise, and advice. They’re consultants, and we’re their clients. Nobody wants to do business with a lawsuit waiting to happen. You don’t hire a woman who’s sued her last three employers for sexual harassment, you don’t hire the peson who’s led to his company being sued for times, and you don’t take on the client that sued his last two consultants. You can go on and on about how doctors are there to help people and all that, but the simple fact of the matter is that if you ignore the business side of practicing medicine, you’re not going to _have_ a practice before long. Doctors are NOT legally or ethically obligated to treat all patients. People get kicked out of practices all the time for stuff ranging from violating their narcotics contracts to being excessively abusive to the staff. In the last year and a half, I don’t know how many patients **Dr.J** has kicked out of their clinic, but I’d say it’s at least five, and there are probably a dozen more who are riding the line. One of the attendings stopped seeing a frequent flyer after the woman threw a city phonebook at her head. There was a woman last year who was dismissed from the only dialysis center in town for consistently abusing the staff verbally and physically. When she burns through the dialysis centers in the surrounding areas, I don’t know what she’ll do. Drive 3 hours each way three times a week for her treatments, move to some other area, or die, I suppose. All I know is that I have no problem with a center refusing to treat her; she’s the one who made the cost of doing business with her so high, so she can bloody well pay it. The people on this database will find someone to treat them, eventually. It may be a huge pain in the ass, and they may pay through the nose for it, but they’ll find medical care just like people with five wrecks and three traffic tickets eventually find car insurance. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/23 "2004-03-05T18:38:41Z")
If revenge-minded docs were out to deny health care to those responsible for lawsuits, they would have turned first on malpractice attorneys (and no website would be needed to identify them). It’s likely such attorneys do have to work harder to find care, at least in certain high-risk specialties, but on the other hand you don’t hear stories about such lawyers and their family members dropping dead from lack of treatment. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/24 "2004-03-05T18:40:10Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > On a personal note, far better for you to not be able to find a doctor for your son because you filed a frivolous suit than for my mother not to be able to find a doctor because your suit drove him out of business. What if the lawsuit I filed _wasn’t_ frivolous? [QUOTE] And let’s face it, medical practice is a business. … You can go on and on about how doctors are there to help people and all that, but the simple fact of the matter is that if you ignore the business side of practicing medicine, you’re not going to _have_ a practice before long. [QUOTE] Um, false dilemna? There’s a huge range between “ignore” and “focus on to the detriment of society.” I’m not saying the business side should be ignored. Money is important. I’m saying that an indiscriminate blacklist against all those involved in all malpractice suits is bad, and that it shouldn’t be an acceptable option for dealing with the issue of bogus malpractice suits. > [@](#): > > One of the attendings stopped seeing a frequent flyer after the woman threw a city phonebook at her head. There was a woman last year who was dismissed from the only dialysis center in town for consistently abusing the staff verbally and physically. Don’t you think there’s a difference between engaging in illegal, abusive behaviour towards others and using the legal system _exactly_ how it was intended to be used? The system being discussed _does not discriminate between valid and frivolous_. ---
**Author:** ![Intent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5e9695/32.png) [@Intent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intent)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/25 "2004-03-05T19:04:34Z")
Of course, there is an opposite side to this coin. If the patient finds it so disagreeable that doctors use this service, prior to establishing non emergency contact with the doctor, a patient can ask if the doctor uses the website. And if they do, the patient can choose a different doctor. I personally think the website is a fine idea. I have friends who cannot afford to see a doctor at all, because of a lack of health insurance. No doctor has been “obligated” to treat them. Medicine is a business as well as a science, and should still be regarded as such. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/26 "2004-03-05T19:10:26Z")
> [@](#): > > MetacomThe system being discussed \*does not discriminate between valid and frivolous Why should it? It should present _all_ the information and let the doctor make the choice. ---
**Author:** ![lucwarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@lucwarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucwarm)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/27 "2004-03-05T19:35:14Z")
I have mixed feelings about a list of patients who have sued their doctors, I’m just joining in the thread because as an attorney, I wanted to share my thoughts about “frivolous” lawsuits. First, truly frivolous lawsuits – lawsuits that have no basis in fact and/or law – are very rare, particularly in the area of contingency fee work. Because the vast majority of lawyers are not going to put a case into suit on contingency unless the case is reasonably strong. Believe me, it’s hard enough to get defendants to pay if you have a good case. Second, defendants have a tendency to believe that lawsuits against them are frivolous. This is just human nature – nobody likes to believe that they have done anything unlawful. When defendants settle lawsuits, they have a tendency to justify it to themselves and to others by stating that the lawsuit was frivolous, but they are merely settling to avoid litigation costs. Last, certain repeat players - such as insurance carriers - have an incentive to try to convince the public that there is an epidemic of frivolous lawsuits. Of course, other folks, such as the ATLA, have an incentive to try to convince the public of the opposite. The point is that people have an agenda and you should be skeptical of what you hear. * * * In any event, let me try to present a logical argument based on my experience: I get 20 to 30 calls per week from people who have been fired from their jobs. That’s about 100 calls per month. On average, I sign up 1 or 2 new clients a month to sue their former employers. Perhaps 85 out of 100 people have no case at all against their former employer, as far as I can tell. Most of the rest have either inadequate proof, or the damages are too small for me to bother with, i.e. less than $3000. (Note that my threshold is pretty low.) If it were possible to bring frivolous lawsuits and extract a nuisance settlement of even $3,000 per case, then I could earn about $1000 from each phone call. That’s $100k per month, or well over 1 million dollars per year in revenue. Suffice it to say that I don’t earn anywhere near a million dollars per year. I’ll be thankful if I hit 6 figures this year. Of course, I don’t do medical malpractice cases, but I think the same reasoning applies. More strongly, IMHO, since it is generally much more expensive to prosecute a med mal case than an employment case. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/28 "2004-03-05T19:36:42Z")
**Metacom** , it’s _always_ better for your family to go without medical care than mine. Always. And if doctors are being driven out of practice by malpractice lawsuits, it means _somebody_’s family (a whole lot of somebody’s, in point of fact) is going to have to do without. I nominate those who filed suit. I’m a little puzzled that you think keeping doctors in business is hurting society. Having enough doctors for all means people get better health care, and that’s good for society, no? Driving doctors out of business means entire regions go medically underserved, and that’s a Very Bad Thing for society. Trust me, when the expense or hassle of practicing medicine becomes too great, doctors quit. There are too many other ways to make the same money that are less time-consuming and stressful. And out of idle curiosity, how do you _know_ that this will result in the indiscriminate blacklisting of everybody who was ever involved in a malpractice suit? Isn’t that a bit of an **ass** umption on your part? How do you even know that the site in question doesn’t differentiate between successful and unsuccessful claims? (Although that’s not a distinction the underwriters of medmal insurance care about; it’s the number of suits, not the number of successful suits, that drives prices up.) ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/29 "2004-03-05T19:59:08Z")
> [@lucwarm](#): > > First, truly frivolous lawsuits – lawsuits that have no basis in fact and/or law – are very rare, particularly in the area of contingency fee work. Because the vast majority of lawyers are not going to put a case into suit on contingency unless the case is reasonably strong. Or they can advertise 24/7 and convince people that any single thing that goes wrong isn’t their fault. If only 1 in 10 has a case with merit, just up the numbers of people coming in. Profit! > [@](#): > > Second, defendants have a tendency to believe that lawsuits against them are frivolous. This is just human nature – nobody likes to believe that they have done anything unlawful. No, I believe they mostly are frivolous, we live in a nation of wimps. > [@](#): > > When defendants settle lawsuits, they have a tendency to justify it to themselves and to others by stating that the lawsuit was frivolous, but they are merely settling to avoid litigation costs. It costs them more to defend themselves then to settle. It’s a fucking shakedown. > [@](#): > > Last, certain repeat players - such as insurance carriers - have an incentive to try to convince the public that there is an epidemic of frivolous lawsuits. Of course, other folks, such as the ATLA, have an incentive to try to convince the public of the opposite. The point is that people have an agenda and you should be skeptical of what you hear. So there isn’t an epidemic of sue happy people fucking this country up? Wha?!?!?!? * * * In any event, let me try to present a logical argument based on my experience: I get 20 to 30 calls per week from people who have been fired from their jobs. That’s about 100 calls per month. On average, I sign up 1 or 2 new clients a month to sue their former employers. Perhaps 85 out of 100 people have no case at all against their former employer, as far as I can tell. Most of the rest have either inadequate proof, or the damages are too small for me to bother with, i.e. less than $3000. (Note that my threshold is pretty low.) If it were possible to bring frivolous lawsuits and extract a nuisance settlement of even $3,000 per case, then I could earn about $1000 from each phone call. That’s $100k per month, or well over 1 million dollars per year in revenue. Suffice it to say that I don’t earn anywhere near a million dollars per year. I’ll be thankful if I hit 6 figures this year. Of course, I don’t do medical malpractice cases, but I think the same reasoning applies. More strongly, IMHO, since it is generally much more expensive to prosecute a med mal case than an employment case. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/30 "2004-03-05T19:59:41Z")
> [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > **Metacom** , it’s _always_ better for your family to go without medical care than mine. Always. Is it better for your family to go without justice so mine can save money on medical care? > [@](#): > > And if doctors are being driven out of practice by malpractice lawsuits, it means _somebody_’s family (a whole lot of somebody’s, in point of fact) is going to have to do without. I nominate those who filed suit. That’s a pretty big “if,” isn’t it? I haven’t seen any articles indicating that the number of doctors leaving the profession because of malpractice insurance has reached a crisis level yet–or even approached it. > [@](#): > > I’m a little puzzled that you think keeping doctors in business is hurting society. Having enough doctors for all means people get better health care, and that’s good for society, no? > … > And out of idle curiosity, how do you _know_ that this will result in the indiscriminate blacklisting of everybody who was ever involved in a malpractice suit? Isn’t that a bit of an **ass** umption on your part? When I make an **ass** umption I make an ass of you and me. When you repeatedly mischarecterize my arguments in order to prop up the field of strawmen you’ve constructed and then come back with one false dilemna after the other you make something significantly worse then a donkey out of yourself. ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/31 "2004-03-05T20:01:26Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > …Texas recently passed some fuck-the-consumers “tort reform” that imposed an arbitrary cap on non-economic damages in malpractice suits: Doctor accidently cut your legs off instead of removing your appendix because he was high on crank? No more then 750k for your pain! Like that happens every day. Capping pain & suffering / punitive damages has become necessary as the huge sums awarded by juries keeps rising. $750,000 + lost wages would still equal a substantial settlement, (not to mention the $250,000+ the lawyer pockets). I’d like to see an objective study that showed the ratio of frivious malpractice suits to meritorious ones. By the way, there’s at least one lawyer I know who uses a database to check propective clients history of firing or filing suit against other attorneys. That info is considered before he opts to take the case. > [@CrazyCatLady](#): > > …The people on this database will find someone to treat them, eventually. It may be a huge pain in the ass, and they may pay through the nose for it, but they’ll find medical care just like people with five wrecks and three traffic tickets eventually find car insurance. Amen. English rule Now! ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/32 "2004-03-05T20:02:43Z")
> [@lucwarm](#): > > First, truly frivolous lawsuits – lawsuits that have no basis in fact and/or law – are very rare, particularly in the area of contingency fee work. Because the vast majority of lawyers are not going to put a case into suit on contingency unless the case is reasonably strong. Or they can advertise 24/7 and convince people that any single thing that goes wrong isn’t their fault. If only 1 in 10 has a case with merit, just up the numbers of people coming in. Profit! > [@](#): > > Second, defendants have a tendency to believe that lawsuits against them are frivolous. This is just human nature – nobody likes to believe that they have done anything unlawful. No, I believe they mostly are frivolous, we live in a nation of wimps. > [@](#): > > When defendants settle lawsuits, they have a tendency to justify it to themselves and to others by stating that the lawsuit was frivolous, but they are merely settling to avoid litigation costs. It costs them more to defend themselves then to settle. It’s a fucking shakedown. > [@](#): > > Last, certain repeat players - such as insurance carriers - have an incentive to try to convince the public that there is an epidemic of frivolous lawsuits. Of course, other folks, such as the ATLA, have an incentive to try to convince the public of the opposite. The point is that people have an agenda and you should be skeptical of what you hear. So there isn’t an epidemic of sue happy people fucking this country up? Wha?!?!?!? ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/33 "2004-03-05T20:23:36Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > That’s a pretty big “if,” isn’t it? I haven’t seen any articles indicating that the number of doctors leaving the profession because of malpractice insurance has reached a crisis level yet–or even approached it. [http://www.aahpechochamber.org/malpractice/030709.cfm](http://www.aahpechochamber.org/malpractice/030709.cfm) Boldin mine \*\*Peter Forssell, President of the New Hampshire Medical Society, said if steps are not quickly taken, New Hampshire will soon face a crisis similar to that currently experience by states such as West Virginia and Pennsylvania. \*\*“Good doctors already are being driven out of the state - and out of practice - because medical liability costs are out of control,” said Forssell. “In the end, patients are paying the price. When it comes to a real debate about how the current liability system has driven health care costs higher, the voters deserve more than they have gotten so far.” [http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:OKvVARgdTYkJ:www.suburbanchicagonews.com/sunpub/wheaton/news/dupobgyn0108.htm+doctors+being+driven+out+of+practice+by+malpractice+lawsuits&hl=en&ie=UTF-8](http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:OKvVARgdTYkJ:www.suburbanchicagonews.com/sunpub/wheaton/news/dupobgyn0108.htm+doctors+being+driven+out+of+practice+by+malpractice+lawsuits&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) “…Typical insurance rates for obstetricians in the Chicago area have increased 26 percent this year, jumping from $103,000 to $140,000 annually, according to figures from the Illinois State Medical Interinsurance Exchange, the state’s largest malpractice insurer.” Bolding mine "In the last year, at least 170 other Illinois doctors have retired early, left the state or otherwise given up their practices because of escalating premiums, said William E. Kobler, president of the Illinois State Medical Society. “ **But I suppose that’s not as bad as the state of Pennsylvania, which lost 1,500 doctors,** ” he said. When asked in August 2002, 64 percent of ob-gyns in Illinois changed their practice as a result of malpractice premiums, according to a study by the American college of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. **Kobler said downstate Illinois is being set up for a crisis where people won’t be able to find the care they need as more and more doctors can’t keep up their practices."** There are about a million links on this, but I don’t have that kind of time right now. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/34 "2004-03-05T21:02:03Z")
As with so many things, the problems of malpractice suits are caused by fuckwittage and greed. Solutions are hard to come by because of fuckwittage and greed. Of course insurance companies, doctors, and doctors’ groups are going to say that there’s a major problem with the system. The system costs them money. Of course lawyers and some consumers are going to say that there’s no problem with the system. The system makes them money. Doctors who refuse treatment to anyone who appears on a list should eventually end up taking a hit in their pocketbook (fewer patients to treat). Patients who insist on being on such a list should eventually end up taking a hit in their pocketbook (fewer doctors to choose from). This all seems pretty reasonable to me. Julie ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/35 "2004-03-05T21:05:17Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > [\*\*Peter Forssell, President of the New Hampshire Medical Society, said … This is the president of a medical society spewing his opinion without presenting any evidence to justify it. > [@](#): > > “…Typical insurance rates for obstetricians in the Chicago area have increased 26 percent this year, jumping from $103,000 to $140,000 annually, according to figures from the Illinois State Medical Interinsurance Exchange, the state’s largest malpractice insurer.” Showing that a cost increased doesn’t demonstrate that it put a significant number of doctors out of business. > [@](#): > > "In the last year, at least 170 other Illinois doctors have retired early, left the state or otherwise given up their practices because of escalating premiums, said William E. Kobler, president of the Illinois State Medical Society. Insignificant. Illinois has a population of over 12 million. The US has about 2.7 doctors per 1000 people, so we can estimate that Illinois has about 32,400 doctors. 170 represents about half a percent of that amount. > [@](#): > > “ **But I suppose that’s not as bad as the state of Pennsylvania, which lost 1,500 doctors,** ” he said. Heh. There’s several articles out there disputing the Pennsylvania figures. [Here’s one.](http://www.thewgalchannel.com/health/2647327/detail.html) > [@](#): > > When asked in August 2002, 64 percent of ob-gyns in Illinois changed their practice as a result of malpractice premiums, according to a study by the American college of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. This seems ambiguous: 64 percent of all ob-gyns (a fantastic figure, albiet one confined to a specific specialty rather then medicine as a whole), or 64 percent of ob-gyns who had changed their specialty (a rather small number, I imagine). > [@](#): > > **Kobler said downstate Illinois is being set up for a crisis where people won’t be able to find the care they need as more and more doctors can’t keep up their practices."** Shortages of specialist doctors in rural areas isn’t anything new. > [@](#): > > There are about a million links on this, but I don’t have that kind of time right now. There are also a million links that present the other side to the story. Once again: I’m not saying that malpractice isn’t a problem. It is. However, both sides are spewing a lot of misleading figures, and re-spewing them without much critical analysis doesn’t help your case. In order to demonstrate that there’s a genuine country-wide crisis needing immediate, drastic attention, you’ll need to show significant country-wide trends. I haven’t seen evidence of that (and, to be fair, I don’t think that the current system is as perfect as the trial lawyers contend). I don’t think our legal system is destroying our country. I think it’s one of the best things we have going, and I think that the solution to the medical malpractice suit problem may ultimately change our medical system more then our legal system. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/36 "2004-03-05T21:10:10Z")
> [@JohnBckWLD](#): > > Like that happens every day. Capping pain & suffering / punitive damages has become necessary as the huge sums awarded by juries keeps rising. $750,000 + lost wages would still equal a substantial settlement, (not to mention the $250,000+ the lawyer pockets). It doesn’t matter how often it occurs, what matters is that it _does_ occur, and that an absolute limit applies to it when it does. I’m in favor of limiting damages, but I think a hard cap like we have in Texas is too simplistic. > [@](#): > > I’d like to see an objective study that showed the ratio of frivious malpractice suits to meritorious ones. So would I. There’s a dearth of objective information on this. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/37 "2004-03-05T21:11:26Z")
> [@lucwarm](#): > > I have mixed feelings about a list of patients who have sued their doctors, I’m just joining in the thread because as an attorney, I wanted to share my thoughts about “frivolous” lawsuits. > > First, truly frivolous lawsuits – lawsuits that have no basis in fact and/or law – are very rare, particularly in the area of contingency fee work. Because the vast majority of lawyers are not going to put a case into suit on contingency unless the case is reasonably strong. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this **lucwarm**. I have just one minor quibble: “reasonably strong case” is not always synonymous with “probable malpractice”, even though in a rational system it ought to be. And that is the problem with the system. Here’s a real-life example. I’m a practicing pathologist. I’ve never been involved in a malpractice suit - yet. About a 1 1/2 years ago, I sat down at my microscope to sign out a supposedly routine hysterectomy case. The clinical history was that the patient had chronic pelvic pain from endometriosis. I looked at the first slide, from the cervix, and about fell off my chair. The slide showed a deeply invasive cervical squamous cell carcinoma, which undermined a relatively normal-appearing cervical mucosa and extended all the way to the surgical margins. I quickly looked up the surgeon’s operative report: the surgeon reported she had great difficulty freeing up the cervix during the surgery because the normal tissue planes had been obliterated by “adhesions”. (In hindsight, the surgeon was cutting across tumor, because the cancer had spread beyond the cervix and into the adjacent soft tissues, but at the time of the surgery the surgeon had no way to know that. Endometriosis can in fact produce a similar effect.) I looked at the patient’s past pathology reports: she had had **three** previous Pap smears at our institution, each one year apart, and the latest dated just one year before the surgery. I immediately pulled all three Pap smears and very carefully re-screened each slide personally (I was not involved in the original signout of any of the smears). There were NO cancerous or pre-cancerous cells present on any of those three Pap smears, and the smears were technically adequate. This unfortunate woman is in her mid-30s. She now has widely metastatic cancer, and is eventually going to die of her disease. If her family decides to bring suit after her death, do you think they will find it difficult to find an attorney to represent them. I sure don’t - because if this case gets in front of a jury, the plaintiffs will win it. The average person in this country thinks Pap smears should be infallible; to them, three consecutive negative Pap smears can obviously only mean malpractice, no other explanation is possible. “This young woman did everything right, and she still died. Obviously, her doctors must be at fault or the lab screwed up!” will be their thinking. Never mind the fact that there is in fact NO evidence of malpractice in this case at all! The woman’s only physical complaint was vague pelvic pain; she had no other symptoms (such as abnormal bleeding) and no grossly obvious lesions on her cervix that her gynecologist should have spotted on a pelvic exam. She was receiving the recommended gynecologic care for a woman of her age, an annual Pap smear and pelvic examination. The Pap smears were technically adequate, and were not misread - the tumor cells simply weren’t on the slides. This wasn’t a case of negligence or substandard care; this wasn’t preventable. All a lawsuit will do, should one eventually be filed, is releave the (understandable but in this case misdirected) anger of the surviving relatives. And if the family DOES decide to file a lawsuit, I’m certain to be named as one of the defendents, even though my only involvement in the case was in diagnosing the tumor in the hysterectomy specimen and retroactively re-screening the three prior Pap smears. Why? Because as one of my hospital’s only two cytopathologists, I have a close association with the cytology lab. I’m not the lab supervisor (yet), I have minimal direct oversight of the lab, and in this case I personally did nothing wrong - but that won’t matter to the system. I’ll be named, I’ll be dragged through an arduous legal process lasting months, and I may very well end up with a checkmark against my name in the National Practitoner’s Data Bank indicating that I’ve had a malpractice claim filed against me, even though I did not in fact commit any malpractice! Note that I could have avoided this whole mess simply by choosing not to go into cytopathology (and I almost didn’t, even though I love the field and am quite good at it, precisely because I was afraid I could one day find myself in exactly this situation). My hospital’s cytopathology lab could eliminate the possibility of facing any similar problems in the future simply by refusing to screen Pap smears. Don’t get involved in the first place, and you can’t get sued. THAT’S the problem with the current system. Practicing good medicine is not an adequate defense in today’s legal climate. If you’re working in a high-risk field, you’re playing roulette, and eventually your luck WILL run out and you WILL be sued, whether you’ve erred or not - and the result can permanantly affect your ability to practice. And ultimately, that’s why women in small towns in Nevada can’t find a local doctor to deliver their babies, and have to drive two hours to Las Vegas to obtain care that used to be available in their own community. I _want_ to see patients who’ve suffered potentially preventable medical injuries be compensated for their pain and suffering. I _want_ to see incompetent physicians removed from practice. But our current system doesn’t do either task well, and it’s really hurting the quality of patient care in this country. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/38 "2004-03-05T21:26:36Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > I _want_ to see patients who’ve suffered potentially preventable medical injuries be compensated for their pain and suffering. I _want_ to see incompetent physicians removed from practice. But our current system doesn’t do either task well, and it’s really hurting the quality of patient care in this country. I think that’s the clearest and most balanced statement yet (my own included). Right on! ---
**Author:** ![lucwarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@lucwarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucwarm)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/39 "2004-03-05T21:36:48Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > Or they can advertise 24/7 and convince people that any single thing that goes wrong isn’t their fault. If only 1 in 10 has a case with merit, just up the numbers of people coming in. Profit! I have no idea what your point is here. Are you suggesting that there is something wrong with making money off of meritorious cases? > [@](#): > > No, I believe they mostly are frivolous, we live in a nation of wimps. Feel free to believe whatever you like. If it’s not based on authoritative information or objective experiences though, you’re ignorant. > [@](#): > > It costs them more to defend themselves then to settle. It’s a fucking shakedown. Like I said in my last post, if this strategy worked, I’d be a millionare no problem. I’m not. Your fantasies about the legal system are just wrong. > [@](#): > > So there isn’t an epidemic of sue happy people fucking this country up? > > Wha?!?!?!? Not that I’m aware of. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2004, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692/40 "2004-03-05T22:11:18Z")
> [@lucwarm](#): > > I have no idea what your point is here. Are you suggesting that there is something wrong with making money off of meritorious cases? No, I’m suggesting that these scumbag shotgun lawsuit conniving lawyers are giving people the impression that _every_ case has merit. Because of this, people are taking less and less responsibility for their actions, instead looking to make a quick buck, and overwhelming the system with their frivolous, bullshit claims. > [@](#): > > Like I said in my last post, if this strategy worked, I’d be a millionare no problem. I’m not. Well it seems to be going well for the endless stream of lawyers advertising on TV, buses, subways, etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctorsknowus-com-helping-doctors-blacklist-patients/232692.md?page=3)