Civil Justice

A doctor accused in more than 100 medical malpractice lawsuits in West Virginia has changed his name in Dothan where he lives.
Dr. John Anderson King is now Christopher Wallace Martin after filing a petition for a name change at the Houston County Probate Office on March 14, The Dothan Eagle reported Saturday.
His address on the petition is the same address for Dothan attorney Richard Crum, who defended King in 1999 after the Jackson County Hospital in Marianna, Fla. accused him of stealing a medical logbook.
King agreed to a pretrial order dismissing the charge but requiring him to pay a fine and enroll in a supervision program, and left the hospital soon afterward.
Crum could not be reached for comment by the newspaper, which left messages at his home and office.
King's reason listed for changing his name on the petition was "identity theft by former co-worker."
King, who is licensed in 14 states - including Alabama - as an osteopathic physician, has led a career plagued with problems.
King's tenure at Putnam General Hospital in Hurricane, W.Va., lasted from December 2002 until June 2003.
The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia cited records showing King conducted more than 500 surgeries during that time, costing more than $7 million. He was suspended after a peer review of his surgeries concluded many of them were "unnecessary."
Most of the medical malpractice complainants claim chronic pain since King operated on them, according to the report. Others claim non-sterile instruments were used in the surgeries.
The Gazette also chronicled King's problems while practicing in Jasper, Ala., Oklahoma City and Marianna. He and a hospital in Jasper settled a medical malpractice suit for $550,000 in 1994 after a woman became a paraplegic following spinal anesthesia administered by King.
He and two other doctors paid a $250,000 settlement in 2000 to a man who claimed medical problems following an operation at Jackson County Hospital. In 1995, he was fired from Hillcrest Health Center in Oklahoma City.
The Alabama Board of Medical Examiners also reprimanded King on Feb. 4 of this year, assessing a fine and ordering him to take a course on medical ethics, the Eagle reported.
King has not been found to have made any false statements on his name change petition, according to Houston County Probate Judge Luke Cooley.
The probate office confirmed that King had been living at the same address for at least four weeks before applying for the name change.
He also indicated on his petition that he did not have any outstanding judgments against him and had not been convicted of a felony. He indicated he was involved in pending litigation in West Virginia relative to former employment there.
Cooley said there is no requirement to do background checks on people who request name changes.

Article from the Dallas Business Journal - March 10, 2006:

Nearly three years after Texas moved to cap the amount of jury awards, the number of lawsuits filed and the size of those awards are shrinking

When news of a $606 million jury award hit the news wires last year, Michael Sawicki's phone was ringing off the hook.
People wanted to know if Sawicki, a Dallas lawyer, could secure the same justice for their medical malpractice claims that he secured for the survivors of William Jameson, who a Dallas County jury determined was dosed with a fatal level of chemotherapy drugs from his doctor.
But when Sawicki answers calls from those interested in filing medical lawsuits, he must determine if the cases merit the time and expense they require. He filed the chemo suit a week before Texas' major 2003 tort reform law took effect, limiting non-economic damages to $250,000 per physician, up to $750,000 if another doctor and hospital are involved.
Another cold reality: The chemo suit netted only $2.5 million, the amount of insurance coverage the medical practice carried. Attempting to collect any more would likely prompt the physician's clinic to file for bankruptcy.
A year after landing the second-largest jury award in the United States, Sawicki is far from being set for life; the scarcity of money from medical malpractice suits has prompted him to branch out into business law and general negligence cases.
"While the jury might feel the plaintiffs might deserve it, the legislators haven't heard the evidence and have put caps on awards," said Sawicki, who practices at the firm Brown, Sawicki & Mitchell L.L.P. Few lawyers would argue that jury awards are becoming smaller in Texas, and that the number of medical cases has dropped.
What's more a point of discussion: Has the backlash against major jury awards gone too far?
'Hellhole' no more?
The Texas Gulf Coast has been consistently named a "Judicial Hellhole" by the American Tort Reform Association for the past four years, mainly because of major verdicts in Beaumont and courts nearby. Many cases are heard in that area because of the area's blue-collar juries, one of which handed down the $253 million Vioxx award in Angleton, a town about 40 miles south of Houston. It was the third-largest award handed down by a jury in the United States in 2005, according to Lawyers Weekly USA, which monitors jury awards across the country.
Headlines announcing such awards are deceptive because juries aren't told of lawsuit caps before they hand down their verdicts, or that judges ultimately decide how much money is awarded, many lawyers say.
Yet public reaction to such awards is what's triggering a juror groundswell elsewhere.
"In the 10-years-plus I've been doing this in Texas, I've seen a shift in the mindset of the population," said James Lowery of the law firm of Kirk & Lockhart. "I think the tort reform is the result of the shift of the mindset. The people I've encountered in the jury selection process ... have developed a feeling that it should not be a lottery."
Median jury compensatory awards have continued to shrink in Texas, from $23,150 in 2000 to $12,000 in 2003, according to Pennsylvania-based Jury Verdict Research, which tracks large jury awards nationwide. Texas' median jury award in 2003 was less than a third of the national median, the organization reports.
Lowery said he successfully defended a client in Beaumont in 2003, and has handled numerous toxic tort cases.
He said he saw jury awards drop before tort reform took hold.
Changes in the law
In 2003, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 4, the most comprehensive tort reform bill in state history, capping non-economic damages in medical liability cases at $250,000 per claimant. Then, Texas voters approved Proposition 12, a constitutional amendment to protect HB 4 from legal challenges. Last year, Senate Bill 15 required medical proof from those claiming to have illnesses related to asbestos or silica. The bill also requires each case to be tried individually, instead of in groups.
Another reform in Texas includes limiting punitive damages to twice the amount of economic damages. Various iterations of tort reform have been adopted by legislators since 1987. More than 40 states have engaged in some type of tort reform.
Proponents of tort reform argue that excessive lawsuits drive up the cost of virtually everything, from cars to fast food.
But opponents of the current tort reform -- such as Sawicki -- argue that current laws have gone too far.
He said that under current laws, the $250,000 cap makes it cost-prohibitive to recover damages for the very young or the aged, either of whom have little earning power. One example he cites is the elderly in nursing homes. A lawsuit on behalf of an elderly person who dies of neglect in a nursing home might result in only a $250,000 jury award.
"When you do the math on it, the average expert in a case of moderate complexity will cost $20,000 to $50,000 -- nearly a quarter of the recovery," Sawicki said.
Factoring in the survivor's award and other costs, Sawicki said it's unlikely attorneys will pursue such cases.
Yet Jon Opelt, executive director of Texas Alliance for Patient Access, said the caps for non-economic damages don't preclude plaintiffs from punitive damages in cases where physicians were negligent, or recouping the cost of medical treatment and lost wages. The alliance is a coalition of doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, health care providers and medical liability insurers working to change medical liability laws. Before tort reform, according to the alliance, in Texas the average medical liability award quadrupled from 1989 to 1999, rising from $472,982 to $2,048,541, mostly due to a surge in non-economic awards.
"Damages were so high, they might have taken on a punitive nature," Opelt said.
The stronger tort reform laws have likely dropped the number of medical liability lawsuit filings across North Texas. Where 2001 saw 487 medical suits filed in Dallas County, 2004 saw 142, according to information compiled by the Texas Alliance for Patient Access.
Opelt said he believes lawyers are still adapting to the cap on awards, and that many potential suits were filed just before the 2003 caps took effect. He said the alliance expects the number of medical lawsuits to amount to two-thirds of what they used to be.
Dallas trial lawyer Don Godwin of the firm Godwin, Pappas, Langley Ronquillo L.L.P. said he believes that before the major tort reform took effect in Texas, nearly 65% of all civil jury trials were personal injury cases, and the rest involved commercial suits and intellectual property law violations.
Now, he estimates that only 20% involve personal injuries and the rest involve commercial litigation and intellectual property laws.
Godwin said the state laws limiting jury awards might have gone too far.
He said rather than limiting punitive and non-economic damages, the state should have passed laws banning plaintiffs from "shopping" for more generous venues, such as Beaumont.
"You would still have a threat out there, policing people," Godwin said. "If you've got a senior in high school (who is a victim of medical malpractice), I think it's a little harsh to say you don't have any economic damages."
A job too well done?
"I have to work twice as hard for half has much, but it's still double what I'm worth," said Fort Worth trial lawyer Chuck Noteboom, who has landed a $102 million jury verdict against State Farm Insurance Co. and a $250 million negligence verdict against a nursing home. But, he says, major jury verdicts have all but vanished.
"It's like winning the Lotto," Noteboom said. "You read about people winning, but don't expect any money when you buy a lottery ticket."
He said a conservative groundswell has risen against labor unions, Hollywood and trial lawyers.
"They've essentially legislated trial lawyers out of existence," he said of the recent tort reforms.
Sawicki said even defense trial lawyers are going the way of the buffalo, in light of a drop in lawsuits.
Southern Methodist University law professor Ellen Pryor said 93% of jury verdicts aren't affected by the award caps.
She said research that she has read indicates the tort system overcompensates in small injury cases and underpays in serious injury cases. She said the situation usually plays itself out in traffic accidents. Many drivers unknowingly take part in a sort of "lottery," where they find themselves and other drivers underinsured when in serious accidents.
"What happens if someone gets rear-ended ... and there's a serious brain injury, and another victim becomes a paraplegic, and the driver of the gravel truck has no insurance, or has a $1 million policy. Are you going to be paid off by the other person's insurance? That's the lottery. Because there's very little self-insurance."
by Dave Moore

The "White Wall"
A new code of conduct is taking hold of the medical profession: First do no harm—to your colleagues.
DR. GARY LUSTGARTEN, A FLORIDA NEUROSURGEON, testified in 1998 that mistakes by doctors in Fayetteville, N.C., led to the death of a 19-year-old patient, Michael Hardin. Hardin had depended on a shunt to drain fluid from his brain since he was a child, and the shunt became clogged. In 1995, he went to the Cape Fear Valley Medical Center for emergency surgery to have it repaired. Within hours of the surgery, he had a heart attack. He died 18 days later. His mother sued the hospital and the surgeons who treated him. In the ensuing trial, Lustgarten stated that the repair did not clear the blockage, faulting the medical staff for not more closely monitoring the pressure on the young man's brain. Lustgarten suggested that Dr. Bruce Jaufmann, one of the surgeons, may have "falsified medical records to protect his associate" when he wrote that fluid did not spurt out of the shunt during surgery, which would have indicated too much pressure on the brain. The case settled for more than $2 million, and the family abandoned their claim against Jaufmann as part of the settlement. Four years later, though, a still-angry Jaufmann filed a complaint against Lustgarten with the North Carolina Medical Board, alleging that it was Lustgarten who had "testified falsely" at trial. The North Carolina medical board rarely revokes the license of any doctor, much less one who has not hurt anyone or committed any criminal offense. In 2001 and 2002, the board allowed five physicians to continue practicing even after they were found to have compromised patient care, abused drugs, sexually abused patients, or engaged in violent behavior. Lustgarten was not so lucky. In 2002, the board held a hearing without him or his attorney, as Lustgarten had been subpoenaed to testify in court in another state on the same day. On the strength of statements from Jaufmann, his lawyer, and another expert witness, the medical board charged Lustgarten with giving "disparaging, demeaning, or impertinent responses" on the stand and "totally unsubstantiated, inflammatory" testimony. It revoked Lustgarten's license, the first time that any state medical board revoked a doctor's license for giving court testimony. Lustgarten's lawyer, Seth Cohen, argued that his client's testimony was not fraudulent and that it constituted protected free speech. He pointed out that Lustgarten hadn't been the only expert to testify that Hardin's doctor was negligent. And even if he was, Cohen added, "there will always be a battle of the experts" in malpractice cases. A state judge reversed five of the board's six claims against Lustgarten, and last November the board voted to suspend Lustgarten's license for a year rather than revoke it. Medical malpractice trials involve competing accounts of expert witnesses. If doctors refuse to testify or are prevented from doing so for plaintiffs, lawsuits cannot go forward. In 14 states, a physician must verify that a lawsuit has merit before it can be filed, and it's nearly impossible in most other states to advance to trial without an expert. At the federal level, the Supreme Court in the 1993 Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals case toughened the standards for judges vetting expert witness testimony. That rule, which has been adopted by most states, represented a major victory for the American Medical Association, which filed a brief in support of stricter controls on expert witnesses, arguing that judges weren't keeping "junk science" out of the courtroom. As the medical establishment has made tort reform—and restrictions on medical malpractice lawsuits—its top legislative priority, it has gone beyond seeking to limit who can testify as expert witnesses and taken steps to muzzle them altogether. Professional medical organizations have strongly discouraged members from testifying on behalf of plaintiffs. A new nonprofit organization, the Coalition and Center for Ethical Medical Testimony, or CCEMT, was set up to educate the public about what it terms "hired guns." The sum of these efforts is that doctors like Lustgarten are finding their careers on the line for taking the witness stand. DOCTORS DON'T LIKE TO TESTIFY against their colleagues. They rely on each other for professional guidance and patient referrals, so speaking out against colleagues can cost them associates and impact their bottom line. But self-interest is not the only, or even primary, reason for their reticence. Many doctors believe that genuine malpractice is rare. In 1988, Harvard researchers found that most of the 47 physicians they polled were reluctant to label substandard care as negligent, and they generally didn't believe that victims of that inferior care deserved compensation. Expert witnesses willing to pass judgment on another doctor are therefore a scarce commodity, and they can charge a high price for their services. A good witness can earn as much as $750 an hour, plus travel expenses that can range from $2,000 to $10,000 a day. Lawyers have a particularly hard time finding a doctor to testify against another doctor in the same town. The predicament led Barry Boughton, a retired Michigan attorney who now volunteers for the advocacy group Public Citizen, to use experts from the medical school faculty at the University of Michigan as witnesses. The faculty tended to be more outspoken because they were more insulated from peer pressure and often had to repair damage done by doctors getting sued. "Initially, they felt it was their obligation to speak out," Boughton said. But worried that in-state testimony could affect patient referrals from around the state, the university contemplated barring faculty from testifying in such cases, Boughton said. The school decided not to enact such a policy but, despite repeated calls, would not explain why. Seeking to reduce litigation, the medical establishment has long tried to prevent doctors from testifying. In 1998, the AMA declared that testifying as an expert amounted to the practice of medicine and could be regulated by state medical boards. As a result, doctors can now be sanctioned for what they say in a courtroom. The AMA also encourages its members to report instances of allegedly fraudulent testimony to those boards. As a result, more and more medical societies have begun to sanction members with penalties like suspension or revocation of their society membership. They have focused their energies on doctors who aid plaintiffs' attorneys. As the American Society of Anesthesiologists newsletter declared in 2002, when it comes to doctors working as experts, "As a rule, defense work is good, and plaintiffs' work is bad." These professional penalties effectively control expert testimony, because few lawyers want to hire a doctor censured as a witness by his own professional organization. Yet there is scant evidence that doctors targeted by these organizations have lied on the stand. One of the most active medical societies on this front is the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Since AANS set up the nation's first professional conduct review board to examine expert testimony in 1983, it has reviewed the cases of some 50 physicians. It has stripped several doctors of their membership after they testified on behalf of plaintiffs in malpractice cases and suspended many others, including Lustgarten. Other groups are now following suit. The medical societies have been emboldened by the case of Donald Austin, a Detroit neurologist. In a trial involving a plaintiff who had suffered a paralyzed vocal cord during cervical fusion surgery, Austin testified that "a majority of neurosurgeons" would agree that the surgeon had been careless. The jury disagreed with his conclusion and found for the defendant doctor, who later filed a complaint with AANS against Austin. The AANS suspended Austin for violating the society's conduct code by giving unethical testimony. Austin sued the group, alleging that he had lost $150,000 in annual income from expert-witness fees as a result of the society's action, which he characterized as "revenge" for his testimony against a fellow neurosurgeon. The trial court dismissed the case on the grounds that the court didn't have the power to interfere with the internal operations of a private association. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision and endorsed the AANS's peer review system. "The Association had an interest . . . in Austin's not being able to use his membership to dazzle judges and juries and deflect the close and skeptical scrutiny that shoddy testimony deserves," wrote Judge Richard Posner. "This kind of professional self-regulation rather furthers than impedes the cause of justice." The Supreme Court chose not to hear Austin's appeal. Medical groups insist that their regulation of expert witnesses is motivated by science, but some of their actions suggest otherwise. Austin's attorneys, for instance, discovered that the AANS had never sanctioned a doctor who had testified for the defense. The group also has no mechanism for anyone outside the AANS to bring an ethics charge against a member. That means plaintiffs who believe their cases have been compromised by a deceptive witness for the defense cannot pursue the same kind of sanctions that the AANS has applied to plaintiffs' witnesses. The Florida Medical Association openly discourages doctors from testifying on behalf of patients injured by doctors, telling members that their names will be posted in area hospitals if they appear as witnesses in malpractice cases. A director of the Florida College of Emergency Physicians has gone a step further, creating a website posting the names of doctors who testify. North Carolina will allow only doctors licensed in the state to give expert testimony. Medical groups in other states are pursuing similar provisions in order to block the flow of unfavorable out-of-state witnesses. Such rules could be devastating for injured patients. "It would make it virtually impossible to find an expert," said Boughton. Some doctors have also formed a new insurance company, Medical Justice, to provide resources for doctors to countersue other doctors and lawyers involved in lawsuits against them. The CCEMT represents the latest and most aggressive attack on expert witnesses. It was founded last summer by Dr. A. Bernard Ackerman, a New York dermatologist who settled a medical malpractice case in 2000 for $2.7 million. Ackerman was accused of failing to correctly diagnose a biopsy slide as cancerous; the plaintiff, Lilly Dubin, died during the trial. Despite conceding at trial that he did not review the entire slide, Ackerman launched a crusade to discredit four of the doctors who served as experts for Dubin—and to appeal the verdict against him in the court of professional opinion. He sent off a flurry of missives to medical boards, prosecutors, professional societies, and the high-profile lawyer Alan Dershowitz. In those letters, he accused Dubin's experts—including Dr. DuPont Guerry IV, a world-renowned authority on melanoma at the University of Pennsylvania medical school who had been the plaintiff's oncologist, and Dr. Milton Okun, a clinical professor of pathology at Boston University School of Medicine—of lying and engaging in "shockingly unethical behavior." Ackerman's organization, the first to focus exclusively on expert witnesses, contends that courtrooms are rife with charlatans. Ackerman said that his own experience as an expert witness revealed to him that "many of my colleagues didn't just judge the truth, but lied outright." When pressed for examples of such frauds, he referred to a case in North Carolina where he alleges that a dermatologist falsely claimed that the standard of care had been breached. He insisted that the expert "is a scoundrel and everyone knows it" but refused to give out the name of the case, the doctor, the expert, or the lawyer involved—because Ackerman himself is a hired witness for the defense. He has also accused Okun, one of Dubin's experts, of lying in a second case involving one of Ackerman's protégées. Okun denied the charge and said of CCEMT: "It's a massive attempt by doctors to limit patients' rights." PLAINTIFFS' LAWYERS AND INJURED PATIENTS are feeling the pinch. Last spring, for instance, Florida attorney Gary Friedman was about to go to trial in the case of Cristine Del Cueto, who was crippled at age 3 in 1995 during brain surgery at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. His key expert witness was Dr. Robert Rand, a respected neuro-oncologist. Rand planned to testify that the neurosurgeon who operated on the toddler was negligent when he cut the main blood vessel to her brain during delicate surgery on her optic artery. But in March 2003, one month before the trial was slated to begin, Rand withdrew from the case. The AANS had suspended Rand for a year for testifying on behalf of an 11-year-old boy in the Midwest who had been thrown from his scooter and died. Rand had stated that the doctor treating the little boy could have saved his life by administering cortisone, which would have reduced swelling in his brain. The doctor who was sued filed a complaint with AANS arguing that Rand was wrong, and the society agreed. According to Friedman, the group had sent Rand a letter instructing him "to discontinue expert testimony for the plaintiffs or risk membership." AANS denied that it sent such a letter. Rand felt he had no choice but to withdraw from Del Cueto's case. Because the defendant was so well known—he had trained many of the country's cadre of pediatric neurosurgeons—Friedman could not find a single doctor in the country or overseas who was both an expert and willing to testify. "Everything was ready to go, and then this organization came in and said no," said Cristine's father, Ricardo Del Cueto. "You start wondering, can my daughter ever get a fair trial? Is it worth it? You're kind of pushed down a path to settle." He settled for an undisclosed sum.
by Stephanie Mencimer
In Boston, Doctors now must clear and get approval from Hospital Attorneys before they are engaged as experts!

The Denver-based, consumer-advocacy group Colorado Citizens forAccountability, held its first press conference and legal symposium Fridayafternoon. CCA Founder Patty Skolnik spoke before nearly 120 people as part of aweekend dedicated to medical malpractice victims and the protection of theAmerican Civil Justice System.
"We will speak out for those who have no voice," Skolnik said, referring tothose left injured through medical mistakes.DU Law professor Tom Russell served as host during the afternoon event. Heshattered several myths about the Tort Reform movement by explaining thatthe vast majority of citizens injured by companies, corporations orindividuals suffer in silence. Most never seek compensation through thecourt system. Only a small minority of those who take legal action prevail in court, Russell explained.

Excellent article from the AIA this week:

"Physician pedophiles, physician sexual predators, physician addicts and drug abusers, psychotic and psychopathic doctors, as well as doctors who flagrantly endanger their patients with their medical treatments, are called before the medical board. If there has not been much media attention and the situation can be handled quietly by the board, the doctor may only have his license suspended. He may be placed in rehabilitation. Most, in time will get their license back and quietly return to practice. The medical board, like any good fraternal organization, will protect its own. The Catholic Church protects its priests. The medical boards protect their doctors.

There is one category of physician transgressor in particular the board will treat more harshly than any other. The major but unspoken mission of the state medical boards is to protect MDs from market competition.

The true purpose of this medical monopoly, like all monopolies, is to control the market. And it does so, as many would-be healthcare reformers have learned. Thus the state medical boards' greatest wrath is reserved for those doctors that dare to try innovations that may affect the medical marketplace. This fascist monopoly considers the healthcare marketplace its private domain. The physician dare not tamper with healthcare delivery. Innovations that may lower fees or streamline delivery of services cannot be tolerated by a system whose fundamental purpose is to uphold and increase its members' incomes and its political power.Medical Boards and the Destruction of CompetitionSoon after the medical monopoly was formed it began to push its agenda of destroying all competition. A well organized and funded nationwide purge of all non-MDs was undertaken. Over the course of the first half of the twentieth century this medical monopoly managed to shut down over forty medical schools. Their idea was to keep the number of doctors low in order to keep fees up. After WW II the medical monopoly started rigidly controlling how many of each medical specialty it would allow to be trained. So ophthalmologists, orthopedists, dermatologists, obstetricians, and others began to be in short supply. And of course when supplies are low, fees are high."

Last month in Illinois, Mr. Bush called for strict limits on medical malpractice suits, including a cap of $250,000 on what victims and their families could recover for non-economic damages. Non economic damages include physical and emotional pain and suffering. Also attcked would be Lawyers fees. Although only about 20% of Med Mal cases succeed at trial and Attorneys have to spend Tens of thousands even hundreds of thousands of dollars preparing them and advancing costs on behalf of the victims family for them, Bush would cap attorneys fees as well as victims awards so that any payment over $600,000 would limit the attorneys fee to 15%.

Lets call it what it really is Mr. Bush: a limit on citizens access to the civil justice system for crippled victims of incompetant doctors. Notice he does not propose a cap or limit to how much the suspended doctor can pay HIS/HER attorney! Nor does he propose sanctions against repeat offending doctors. He just attacks the victims access to Justice: Lawyers. Medical Malpractice cases have always been David vs. Goliath situations, now David is losing his sling: What lawyer would want to work 2 years on a case he has a 20% chance of winning, spend $100,00 in upfront costs he may never recoup, and be limited to a 15% fee on any payment over $600K?

Who is hurt here? Children and elder citizens, the most in need of protection. Why? Because with no lost earnings, the recovery is limited to "pain and suffering" and a 'hard' cap by Bush of $250,000. To illustrate why an attorney can't economically take one of those cases: An attorney might recover a fee of $65,000 after spending more than that out of pocket.

In Massachusetts in the last 10 years, "one-fourth of 1 percent of all the doctors — 98 of the 37,369 doctors — accounted for more than 13 percent of all the malpractice payments, $134 million of the $1 billion in total payments," according to Nancy Achin Audesse, executive director of the board that oversees medical professionals there.

It makes sense that regulating doctors rather than lawyers is the remedy for the medical malpractice crisis. Limiting substandard medicine benefits everyone, while placing ceilings on lawsuit damages would potentially deny justice to the families of patients who have been permanently injured by negligent or incompetent medical professionals.

Ted Rall asks this question and answers it with facts to back up his argument that "The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office finds that the costs associated with malpractice--buying insurance and paying out damage awards--amounts to less than two percent of America's skyrocketing healthcare expenses. "Even a reduction of 25 percent to 30 percent in malpractice costs would lower healthcare costs by only about 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent, and the likely effect on health insurance premiums would be comparably small," the CBO determined."

"Of course, there's an easy way for a doctor to avoid malpractice suits: do a good job. Do no harm and you probably won't get sued. And the courts are good at throwing out frivolous lawsuits before they become expensive.
Contrary to corporate belief, patients don't undergo surgery in hope of striking it rich as the result of some medical mishap. And victims rarely sue. Those who do are desperate for justice and money to cover the additional medical care necessitated by their doctor's incompetence."

According to the American Progress Action Fund , President Bush yesterday pushed his plan to restrict justice for injured plaintiffs. The president claimed on behalf of the insurance industry "the prospect of big jury awards in medical malpractice cases was causing insurance rates to soar and doctors to abandon their practices." If you scrape away the overheated rhetoric and look at the reality, however, a very different picture emerges. His proposal would have no real effect on the cost of health care. The caps would " disproportionately affect " children and seniors who live on fixed incomes. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it also would " undermine incentives for safety" while at the same time making it "harder for some patients with legitimate but difficult claims to find legal representation."

Today's high premiums are a result of insurance industry pricing practices which gouge doctors. Consider: While malpractice payouts actually went down by 8.2 percent between 2001 and 2002, there was no corresponding decrease in doctors' premiums ; the insurance industry simply pocketed the difference. The Des Moines Register points out, "There's simply no correlation between lawsuits and insurance rates. Rather, insurance rates are tied to the climate of the stock and bond market, where insurance companies invest much of their money."

A study by Weiss Ratings, Inc., showed that in 19 states with malpractice caps, physicians suffered a 48.2 percent jump in their premiums. Meanwhile, in 32 states without caps, premiums rose by only 35.9 percent. In other words, there is no connection between caps and premium rates. That finding was echoed by the Congressional Budget Office, which found there is " no statistically significant difference in per capita health care spending between states with and without limits on malpractice torts."

The ironic point is that in oreder to be "capped", you must first prove that your damages are over the cap!!!! The cap just redistributes the burden so that the victim bears the "cost" of the doctors malpractice. I wonder if Bush would propose a cap in the following case: his stockbroker gave him negligent advise that he relied on and lost $500,000. Should his damages be capped at $250 too?

A South Carolina surgeon dropped a patient when he found out her husband was a lawyer. Nationwide, some doctors are using 'gorilla' tactics to punish lawyers, who they blame for rising insurance costs, instead of blaming the doctors who are negligent or the insurance companies who are gouging dosctors. The Goverment Congessional Budget Office has already reported a drop in malpractice claims since 2001 which coincides with the collapse of the stock market. The rise in rates of up to 30% can be directly related to insurance companie stock market declines, not higher plaintiffs verdicts. Click here for more Jury statistics. The average award for all types of successful plaintiffs in state court has fallen from $65,000 in 1992 to $37,000 in 2001.

New Jersey patients soon will be able to use a new state Web site to obtain information about doctors, including details about malpractice claims they have settled.

The release of the information cleared a legal hurdle when a federal judge allowed the state to release the records. Public notification of malpractice payouts was signed into law last year by the governor, and was the subject of a lawsuit brought against the state by a daily newspaper, The Record of Bergen County.

Doctors had opposed a state judge's order earlier this year to release records of the payments, which are made by the companies that provide malpractice insurance. Doctors said settlements are neither admissions of negligence nor measures of competence.

U.S. District Court Judge William G. Bassler said withholding the malpractice payment records would mean people are "deprived of information that can be vital in making one of the most serious decisions in one's life -- one's health care.''

Data released by the state Division of Consumer Affairs showed that over the last five years New Jersey doctors' insurance companies have paid more than $890 million in malpractice payments.

Those payments were on behalf of 2,333 doctors, or a little more than 10 percent of the state's 22,000 physicians, the newspaper reported.

Doctors said lawyers often advise them to settle malpractice lawsuits -- whether they acted wrongly or not -- to avoid large jury awards. Conroy said the release of settlement information will prolong those legal battles.

The state-run Web site with details about doctors will become active June 23, which is when more information about the site will be available, according to the state Division of Consumer Affairs.

The site will contain information on the malpractice payouts, as well as physicians' schooling, specialties and any disciplinary action they have faced.

New Jersey patients soon will be able to use a new state Web site to obtain information about doctors, including details about malpractice claims they have settled.

The release of the information cleared a legal hurdle when a federal judge allowed the state to release the records. Public notification of malpractice payouts was signed into law last year by the governor, and was the subject of a lawsuit brought against the state by a daily newspaper, The Record of Bergen County.

Doctors had opposed a state judge's order earlier this year to release records of the payments, which are made by the companies that provide malpractice insurance. Doctors said settlements are neither admissions of negligence nor measures of competence.

U.S. District Court Judge William G. Bassler said withholding the malpractice payment records would mean people are "deprived of information that can be vital in making one of the most serious decisions in one's life -- one's health care.''

Data released by the state Division of Consumer Affairs showed that over the last five years New Jersey doctors' insurance companies have paid more than $890 million in malpractice payments.

Those payments were on behalf of 2,333 doctors, or a little more than 10 percent of the state's 22,000 physicians, the newspaper reported.

Doctors said lawyers often advise them to settle malpractice lawsuits -- whether they acted wrongly or not -- to avoid large jury awards. Conroy said the release of settlement information will prolong those legal battles.

The state-run Web site with details about doctors will become active June 23, which is when more information about the site will be available, according to the state Division of Consumer Affairs.

The site will contain information on the malpractice payouts, as well as physicians' schooling, specialties and any disciplinary action they have faced.

New Jersey patients soon will be able to use a new state Web site to obtain information about doctors, including details about malpractice claims they have settled.

The release of the information cleared a legal hurdle when a federal judge allowed the state to release the records. Public notification of malpractice payouts was signed into law last year by the governor, and was the subject of a lawsuit brought against the state by a daily newspaper, The Record of Bergen County.

Doctors had opposed a state judge's order earlier this year to release records of the payments, which are made by the companies that provide malpractice insurance. Doctors said settlements are neither admissions of negligence nor measures of competence.

U.S. District Court Judge William G. Bassler said withholding the malpractice payment records would mean people are "deprived of information that can be vital in making one of the most serious decisions in one's life -- one's health care.''

Data released by the state Division of Consumer Affairs showed that over the last five years New Jersey doctors' insurance companies have paid more than $890 million in malpractice payments.

Those payments were on behalf of 2,333 doctors, or a little more than 10 percent of the state's 22,000 physicians, the newspaper reported.

Doctors said lawyers often advise them to settle malpractice lawsuits -- whether they acted wrongly or not -- to avoid large jury awards. Conroy said the release of settlement information will prolong those legal battles.

The state-run Web site with details about doctors will become active June 23, which is when more information about the site will be available, according to the state Division of Consumer Affairs.

The site will contain information on the malpractice payouts, as well as physicians' schooling, specialties and any disciplinary action they have faced.

Four years ago, then-Gov. George W. Bush cast himself as a champion of patients' rights. Pressed by Al Gore in their final presidential debate on whether patients should be allowed to sue health plans for wrongfully withholding care, he pointed to a pioneering Texas law passed on his watch. "I brought Republicans and Democrats together … to get a patients' bill of rights," Bush said. "We are one of the first states that said you can sue an HMO for denying you proper coverage."

But President Bush, it seems, has changed his mind. The Texas law he championed is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, and this week the administration will ask that the justices strike it down.

New figures out March 17, 2004 from the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court show it is getting harder for patients to sue their doctors for malpractice.

In the last two years, the PA state Legislature and the governor have raised the standard that courts must use to determine if a malpractice case will be heard in court or whether the case is thrown out.

House Republican leaders said those figures show those higher standards are working.

The report issued by Chief Justice Ralph Cappy found there were fewer than 2,700 malpractice suits filed in Pennsylvania in the year 2000. The number increased in 2001 and 2002, but then dropped to 1,989 in 2003. That's a nearly 29 percent drop in the four-year period.

The head of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association, which has opposed most malpractice reforms, said the changes the Legislature has made have accomplished its goal.

Pennsylvania patients are split over the proposed caps on victims rights.

Is there a Malpractice Crisis? Then doesn't that mean too many doctors are making mistakes? If medical malpractice causes bad doctors to go out of business, maybe that’s a good thing. If there’s a medical malpractice insurance problem, let’s call it that. Insurance companies have taken losses in the last few years due to natural disasters and stock market woes. As a result, shareholder profits are not there like they once were.
NYU School of Law professor Jennifer Arlen, who published a piece on medical malpractice liabilities in the NYU Law Review in December, cites a Harvard Medical Practices study that "examined 30,195 written records in the New York state hospital system, and found that about 4 percent of hospitalized patients were injured by the care they received, with one-quarter of these injuries resulting from medical negligence." The report also stated that "one-quarter of the victims of negligence died."
Will caps on Damages lower Malpractice rates? The evidence says no! Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler and many legislators say caps alone won't solve the problem
The available data seem to support Kreidler and his allies, at least if the goal is to keep the cost of malpractice insurance down. A survey of malpractice insurers nationwide shows that rate increases vary widely by state and caps don't ensure lower rates. A review of malpractice rate increases last year by Medical Liability Monitor, an independent reporting service that tracks medical professional liability trends and issues, shows that states without caps on noneconomic damages had the lowest -- and highest -- rate increases.
Some consumer groups such as the Connecticut Patients' Rights Group oppose caps.

Jenny Stephens of Lansdale PA successfully sued an Ambler dentist for medical malpractice after finding out he performed a tooth extraction on her despite the fact that he “had bipolar disorder and an alcohol dependency that was under investigation by the Pennsylvania medical board concerning his fitness to practice dentistry‚” according to her lawsuit.

A tooth extraction performed by Dr. Gary William Pacropis in May 2000 left her unable to continue to perform her regular work. The procedure damaged the trigeminal nerve in her mouth‚ her jawbone became infected‚ and the right side of her mouth now droops down.
“It appears as if I had a stroke‚” Stephens said. “My life totally changed as I know it‚ and even talking hurts. Before this happened‚ I was always front and center.” Her only solution now is brain surgery‚ a risky procedure she won’t consider despite the fact that she lives with constant pain.

Stephens said she doesn’t know what she would’ve done had she not sued Pacropis‚ who in her words‚ “mutilated my mouth” during a routine tooth extraction in May 2000. “I’d be bankrupt‚” she said “I’d be penniless and I would lose everything I worked hard for all my life.”

Pacropis’ dental license was indefinitely suspended in February 2002‚ after he pleaded guilty to “crimes or misdemeanors involving moral turpitude‚” according to The Pennsylvania State Department’s Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs. Pacropis’ medical license was revoked permanently in August 2002 after he pleaded guilty and was sentenced in July 2002 for his fifth drunken-driving arrest in Montgomery County‚ according to court records. He remains in Montgomery County prison‚ according to county prison officials.

When two St. Clair County Illinois doctors were so seriously injured after their surgeries that they could no longer practice medicine, they filed medical malpractice suits. Dr. Larry Alves has heard his colleagues complain about high jury awards and sky-rocketing malpractice insurance rates and he empathizes with them. But he also knows firsthand the price of substandard medical care.

So does Dr. Donald Jerome, an ear, nose and throat specialist who practiced in Belleville, who underwent surgery on Nov. 21, 1997 on his neck to fuse two vertebrae. During the surgery, two surgical nurses pointed out a crack in the surgical drill to neurosurgeon Dr. William Sprich, but Sprich used the drill anyway, the complaint alleged.

A small piece of a drill broke off during the procedure and became lodged in Jerome's spine, according to court records, but Sprich completed the surgery without removing the metal. Jerome suffered permanent vocal chord paralysis, nerve damage, esophageal reflux and coughing spells.
Because of his medical condition, Jerome couldn't continue practicing medicine.

Dr. Robert Zaleski a Wheeling, W. Va., orthopedic surgeon was one of two dozen surgeons to walk off the job in January to protest his state's high costs of malpractice insurance arguing that "frivolous lawsuits" were driving up insurance premiums and forcing physicians to leave the state.
It appears that Zaleski may be more a source of the problem than a victim of it. Between 1987 and 2002, according to the West Virginia Board of Medicine, patients filed 14 lawsuits against Zaleski, eight of which resulted in payouts that together came to $1.7 million. In a 1985 lawsuit (one not among the 14 reported to the Board of Medicine), he admitted in a deposition to being addicted to prescription painkillers for a substantial part of the time that he was operating on people in the early 1980s. Not only was he a drug addict, but to maintain his Percodan habit, Zaleski allegedly wrote prescriptions for other local addicts.

In February 2001, responding to local doctors' allegations of 'lawsuit abuse", the Charleston Gazette undertook a computer-assisted analysis of more than 2,000 medical malpractice claims reported to the West Virginia Board of Medicine. The paper determined that far from being in a state of crisis, West Virginia ranked 35th in the country for median malpractice payouts. The paper also found that both the number of malpractice claims and the dollar amounts of the settlements and verdicts had actually declined between 1993 and 2001.

Last July, congressional Republicans launched hearings featuring testimony of a West Virginia doctor named Dr. Samuel Roberts. Roberts, one of only three doctors who testified, told the committee that he could not afford the insurance to continue delivering babies, and claimed that this year, "I will have to stop, leaving seven counties around me with no family physician delivering prenatal or maternity care." Roberts omitted some critical facts that might have explained some of his insurance woes: In 1987, he pleaded guilty to five counts of cocaine possession and was sentenced to five years probation, according to the Charleston Gazette. In response, the state suspended his medical license for a year, though it later reduced the penalty to five years of supervised probation. A year after his dire threats of doom to Congress, Roberts is today still practicing medicine.

In a speech at Little Rock Jan. 26, President Bush pointed out Dr. Sara McBee of Fayetteville and said that she'd stopped delivering babies because of rising insurance costs that were "a direct result of too many junk lawsuits." Bush was promoting his legislation to restrict medical malpractice lawsuits. He told the crowd:
"Sara McBee is here. There's Sara. She's from Fayetteville, Arkansas. She practices family medicine. She was delivering between 80 and 100 babies a year. Now, there's a soul - a good soul, who loves life to the point where she's willing to take her talents and deliver babies. It must be an unbelievably satisfying profession to bring life to be.
"And yet, in July of 2002, her insurance premiums had more than doubled. See, the litigation culture made it nearly impossible for her to practice her love. I say nearly impossible, because she wouldn't break her commitments to expecting patients and hung in there for a year. But her premiums continued to rise, and Dr. McBee has stopped delivering babies, as a direct result of too many junk lawsuits. And that's not right. That's not right." (Applause.)
Bush did not mention (although he knew it, according to McBee), that a medical malpractice suit is pending against McBee by a couple who say their child was born with brain damage and multiple disabilities because of mistakes by the doctor.

The current medical liability system works poorly for patients and physicians. Steep increases in malpractice premiums lead to physicians practicing "defensive medicine," which in turn contributes to rising health care costs, in addition to patients' enduring unnecessary medical procedures. Meanwhile, large numbers of Americans continue to suffer preventable medical injuries.
"Physicians must use their abilities to make care safer and injuries rarer, by developing, evaluating, and implementing safety improvements," said Stephen C. Schoenbaum, M.D., senior vice president at the Commonwealth Fund. "More active work on the part of physicians to improve care and reduce harm is clearly in the best interest of the public and physicians."
Physicians must play an active role in developing and implementing systems to improve patient safety, according to an article published in the Jan. 6 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.
In "Malpractice Reform Must Include Steps to Prevent Medical Injury," The Commonwealth Fund and the Urban Institute say that focusing solely on capping malpractice awards -- the solution most commonly promoted by physicians in the current debate -- leaves out the largest problem: patient injury.

Jan. 5,2004 - Donald Berwick says our nation's world-class hospitals and doctors are delivering health care that is unsafe and unreliable. But his call to dismantle the system makes the medical establishment uneasy -- because he used to be part of it, according to a Boston Globe article on health care.

A respected voice in health care analysis, Berwicks vision is remarkable and he says attainable:
When you wanted to see your doctor, you would call in the morning and get an appointment that afternoon. And it would start on time, not an hour and three outdated People magazines later.
You would maintain control of your medical record, rather than needing a subpoena just to get a peek at it.
Hospitals would have genuine one-stop registration, and every employee would be trained to have the customer-service touch of a Ritz-Carlton concierge. No one would ask you to wear one of those open-backed johnnies.
Waiting would be kept to a minimum, because the hospital will have embraced flow management, anticipating rather than just reacting. There would be no visiting hours in the intensive care unit, since any family member could visit at any time.
Medication errors -- overdoses, allergic reactions, and other adverse responses -- would be all but eliminated by the universal adoption of computerized drug-ordering systems. Hospitals would impose a zero-tolerance policy for workers failing to wash their hands, a move that could save upward of 10,000 lives a year.
Communication and patient-advocacy systems would put an end to horror stories like the one involving the 5-year-old boy who died at Children's Hospital last year because each of his many doctors assumed another doctor was in charge.

January 5, 2004 - A growing collection of research suggests that this increasingly popular gastric bypass surgery operation commonly used for weight loss can have a hidden risk: inexperienced surgeons. "Gastric bypass is the hottest thing in surgery right now, unfortunately some of that is economically driven," said Dr. Steven Rothenberg, a surgeon at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center in Denver. "The thing that made it take off is that now it can be done laparoscopically." Surgeons promote laparoscopic surgery to patients as safer than traditional more invasive surgery. And it is -- in the hands of experienced doctors.

But the gastric bypass is so difficult, according to physicians who have tracked the results of their cases, that patients of surgeons who have done fewer than 70 to 100 operations have complications more often -- and a greater chance of death from those complications. Some fear that surgeons are rushing into the field for economic reasons without adequate training. Some hospitals allow surgeons to operate after only one weekend seminar.

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2003/12/08/prsb1208.htm

An analysis of top verdicts in Pinellas shows few people walk away rich. Most settle for considerably less.
A St. Petersburg Times review of some of the top verdicts in Pinellas County history shows that few people wring every penny out of a large jury award. Most cases are settled for far less while an appeal is pending, sometimes years after the verdict. Some people never collect anything.
Pinellas is hardly unique. The same holds true for Florida and the nation, lawyers say.
In a nine-year period ending in 1995, the state Comptroller's Office estimated that a jury award was paid in 36 percent of cases with punitive damages. In the remaining 64 percent, the money either could not be collected or had yet to be collected.The study showed that total collections were only 13.2 cents on the dollar.

Last May, Dr. Richard Kaul went before the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners to plead to keep his doctor's license.

Kaul had been convicted in England of negligent manslaughter after a dental patient died under anesthesia. His British license was revoked when he admitted that his "inattention" allowed the patient's blood oxygen to drop low enough to cause brain hypoxia and, finally, cardiac arrest.

But the New Jersey board allowed Kaul to keep his state license if he agreed to a six-month suspension.

The case while dramatic, nonetheless typifies the Board of Medical Examiners' attitude toward doctors who harm their patients. The board rarely bans doctors from practicing, even when they kill people, a review of the board's discipline records, dating back to 1972, shows.

In fact, doctors who repeatedly commit malpractice or engage in behavior that could harm patients on multiple occasions are about twice as likely to be allowed to continue practicing than to be banned, the records show.

The survey discovered 290 cases in which doctors are described as repeatedly committing malpractice. In only 90 of those cases -- about one in three -- were the doctors permanently prevented from continuing to practice. In all other cases they were fined, reprimanded or given temporary suspensions, but were allowed to continue working.

Jim Edwards in the Dec. 17, 2003 issiue of the New Jersey Law Journal undertook the study to test a key argument in the debate over the medical malpractice insurance crisis: Whether the medical profession allows bad doctors to continue practicing after they commit malpractice, thus increasing malpractice insurance premiums.

Doctors, who earlier this year nearly succeeded in convincing the state Legislature to cap damages for pain and suffering at $250,000, have contended that the malpractice insurance crisis is caused largely by frivolous suits and jackpot jury awards, not by bad doctors.

Overall, the survey found that since 1972, the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners has disciplined 800 doctors for activity harmful to patients. About 32 percent of the 3,461 discipline reports issued by the board describe cases in which the board has found that a doctor has harmed a patient.

The numbers are surprisingly low -- only about 26 cases a year. By contrast, 1,650 to 2,000 medical malpractice suits are filed every year, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts. Settlements in such cases are often secret, but the federal National Practitioner Data Bank of Rockville, Md., tracks malpractice insurance payouts. In New Jersey, insurers made 940 malpractice payments in 2001, the most recent year for which figures are available, according to the data bank.

Put simply, the disparity between 940 payments and 26 disciplinary actions means that only about 2.7 percent of malpractice payments result in doctors being disciplined.

Indeed, according to cases in which a jury has found malpractice or harmful behavior, none of the following fact patterns guarantees a total ban on medical practice:

Killing a cancer patient with a dose of chemotherapy 10 times the correct strength, at the same time as prescribing antibiotics to which the child was allergic.
Deliberately dropping a fetus in the trash instead of following proper disposal laws.
Being convicted as a cocaine dealer.
Allowing a patient to bleed to death internally in the emergency room as she lay unexamined overnight -- and then filling out the post-mortem paperwork to say she was seen before her death.
Anesthetizing a patient in an MRI machine and then abandoning him so that he dies when complications go unattended.
Repeatedly sexually abusing multiple patients.

In those examples, the doctors were allowed to continue practicing. The doctor who killed the cancer patient, for instance, was fined $5,000.

The Law Journal's survey found many doctors are allowed to continue practicing by the Board of Medical Examiners. And then they reappear before the board on new charges of harming patients.

Take Dr. David Bradway, for instance. In 1980 his license was surrendered with prejudice -- meaning he could not practice at all -- based on a variety of allegations regarding his handling of drugs.

Between 1986 and 1988, however, the board gradually restored his license, granting him more and more practice privileges. By November 1997, he was granted an unrestricted license. Two years later, however, after seven patients had died in Bradway's "Ultra-Rapid Detox" drug treatment program in Merchantville, the board put him back on restricted practice, and banned him from drug rehab remedies.

In Texas from Sept. 1, 1990, to Sept. 31, 2002, 51.3 percent of malpractice payouts were caused by 6.5 percent of Texas doctors with two or more medical malpractice claimsFor example, Physician Number 37949, licensed in Texas, settled or lost 13 medical malpractice suits involving improper treatment or improper performance of surgery between 1990 and 1997. Two of the suits involved the same allegation: a foreign body left in the patient during surgery. Damages to this doctor's patients exceeded $2 million. This doctor has never been disciplined by authorities in Texas.


Or how about the New York doctor who was so proud of his work that he carved his initials into his clients abdomen. Four months later he was still practicing medicine!

Mindy Snyder was a young registered nurse who went to a hospital ER complaining of a headache. Her doctor, who had been practicing for 3 months gave her an overdose of 60 mg of morphine by direct injection and left her unattended. She fell into a coma for almost a month. The result was severe brain damage. She was transferred to a rehab hospital, where she spent the next six months. She was rendered an incomplete quadriplegic. Mindy's screams were so horrible that nursing staff had to receive stress counseling. The hospital then created a second phony set of altered records to cover up their medical malpractice.
Mindy's economic damages were a staggering $8 million. Close to half a million dollars represented money she already owed her doctors since their negligence. Roughly $6 million was required to pay doctors to keep Mindy alive in the future - this $ would all go to doctor's, not one cent to her - for future surgeries, therapies, medications, wheelchairs, hospital beds, adaptive housing, psychological counseling, etc. These figures were not disputed. Not one cent would pay her for the total loss of quality of life and her unthinkable pain and torment.
Is there a damage cap proponent who would look her in the eyes and tell her that $250,000 was adequate compensation for the total destruction to her life caused by bad medicine?
For more medical malpractice victim's stories read here.

A recent survey conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, found:
That 35% of doctors in the survey said that either they or members of their families had experienced medical errors in the course of being treated, and most said the errors had "serious health consequences," such as death, long-term disability or severe pain.
Three in ten doctors had seen an error that caused serious harm to patients outside their families in the past year.

It was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, July 1991, that only one person in 65 injured by a doctor's negligence ever files suit. -- New England Journal of Medicine July 1991.
Researchers analyzed 30,121 hospital records of patients discharged from 51 New York State Hospitals in 1984. Of that sample, an estimated 27,177 cases involved some type of medical negligence, including 6,895 deaths and 877 instances of permanent disability of more than 50 percent.
About 16 times as many patients suffered an injury from negligence as received compensation from the tort liability system. Of these accidental medical injuries, 70 percent were preventable.
If included in the National Vital Statistics Report, deaths by medical errors would have been listed as the No. 5 leading cause of death in the U.S. Texas Medical Error statistics.

Dec. 26, 2003
Secrecy is a fact of life when it comes to medical errors. Few involved want to publicize the mistakes.
"A doctor is typically taking care of 1,000 or 1,500 patients," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe of Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group.
Those patients should know if their doctor is making mistakes, Wolfe said. If not, those patients are at risk.

A South Carolina medical malpractice investigation found that:
• Doctors and hospitals make secret deals in S.C. courts to keep cases and the amount doctors pay to victims quiet.
• Hospitals don't always tell patients or their families when a harmful or fatal error has happened. Coroners also are not always told.
• Instead of studying medical mistakes to learn how to prevent them, the S.C. medical profession chooses to keep errors quiet, fearing lawsuits.
• While a federal database keeps track of doctors whose insurance pays claims to victims of medical errors, it keeps the doctors' names secret from the public.

Hospital errors- are often hidden from public view:
When medical errors happen, hospitals don't always admit them, critics say.
For example, when John Theodore, the older brother of former Lt. Gov. Nick Theodore, died in 1999 at Palmetto Richland Memorial Hospital, hospital officials told the family Theodore died of "complications," said Andrew Theodore, a nephew and family spokesman.
When the family heard rumors that negligence played a role in John Theodore's death, they sought a meeting with hospital officials, Andrew Theodore said
Andrew Theodore's version of the meeting is this: that only under questioning did hospital officials acknowledge that hospital workers had allowed John Theodore - who had breathing problems - to be without an oxygen monitor during an MRI procedure.
"I said, 'Had the monitor been there, you would have known he was dying and been able to save him?' They said, 'Yes,'‘" Andrew Theodore said.
The family has sued the hospital, alleging negligence on numerous fronts.

Hospitals don't always tell coroners when they've had a possible accidental death. Under S.C. law, coroners can investigate unexplained deaths of healthy people.
Last May, for example, Lexington Medical Center didn't notify Lexington County Coroner Harry Harman that healthy 20-year-old Daniel Enter had died unexpectedly after a minor operation.
Enter's family is suing Lexington Medical, alleging he died because of a broken oxygen machine and hospital negligence.

State Medical boards contribute to the problem of "bad doctors" by lax enforcement and secret (and light) admonitions against offending doctors. For example the S.C. BOARD OF MEDICAL EXAMINERS last year took action in 52 cases, seven involving allegations of negligence. In four cases, the board shielded the names of doctors it acted against.
One doctor whose name was withheld was cited for contributing to the death of a patient. He was given a private reprimand and fined $1,000.
The unidentified doctor had "performed surgery that was not medically necessary, which led to patient's eventual demise," the board said.

Untill the names of bad doctors is made public and secrecy of settlements ends, the public will continue to be victimized by bad doctors. Until then it will be up to each patient to research and investigate your doctor

Francis J. Collini, a plastic surgeon from Pennsylvania asks the question "Who is to blame for the medical malpractice crisis in Pennsylvania?" Some of his answers are predictable:
"Is it the attorneys? Yes, in part"...
"Are insurance companies to blame? Yes, they play a part as well."
Now this one might be funny if the results of malpractice weren't frequently deadly -
"Are patients to blame? Patients, too, are partly responsible."
But here's the real kicker:
"Are the doctors to blame?" Yes he says - but not the doctors who commit the malpractice - rather real cause of the malpractice crisis are those lying doctors who agree to testify against other doctors!!!! I wonder if Collinni's a little jaded after being sued for malpractice. He rants that his "case would never have gone forward had it not been for the board certified plastic surgeon who agreed to testify against me for money. He was paid handsomely for his testimony. He distorted the medical facts of the case to create a story filled with mischaracterizations and half-truths..." I wonder if he hired his own expert?

Maybe this doctor should talk with Dr. George Ciechanowski, who until recently was president of the medical staff at Christ Hospital, and who says members of the medical groups conspired to have him voted out as staff president. Ciechanowski filed a civil suit against the state and county medical societies, alleging that he was blacklisted for his views opposing caps on medical malpractice suits.
Yesterday, representatives of the New Jersey division of the Polish American Congress reiterated their support for Ciechanowski and called on the Christ Hospital medical staff to have the pulmonologist reinstated. He had one more year to serve in that position.
"Dr. Ciechanowski is a real patriot in this travesty. The act of vengeance perpetrated upon (him) was a case of professional malpractice in itself," said Dorothy Souchuk, vice president of the congress, who urged Jersey City's Polish community to rally behind Ciechanowski.

Dr. John Faulkner of North Carolina was not marching with the doctors to call for a cap on medical malpractice lawsuits. He opposes caps on medical malpractice. His wife Joan was badly burned last June when a cauterizing tool ignited oxygen that was being pumped into her nose during a routine procedure in an operating room.
Her top lip was melted off; her face, neck and chest suffered second- and third-degree burns that will require numerous reconstructive surgeries. After a three-week hospitalization, she was released to begin a new life coping with constant pain, numbed by powerful medications that sap energy and drive. She once tended to the children with delight and precision, but she now cedes all but a few tasks to her husband.
Because Joan Faulkner, 44, stayed at home, she is not eligible for economic damages calculated on lost earnings. And under the bill supported by the state's doctors, the value of her pain and suffering would be $250,000 or less.

According to Weiss Ratings Study, Physicians in States with Caps Suffer 48% Increase in Median Annual Premiums Even While Insurers Enjoy Slowdown in Payouts .
In reviewing the impact that tort reform has had on both medical malpractice (med mal) premiums paid by doctors in three high-risk specialties and insurers’ claim payout levels between 1991 and 2002, Weiss noted the following trends:
Physicians continued to suffer a rapid increase in med mal premiums despite caps
Meanwhile, the insurers enjoyed slowed increases in claims payout levels
Other Factors Contributing to the Med Mal Crisis:
The medical inflation rate:Medical costs have risen 75% since 1991
The need to shore up reserves for policies in force: Med mal insurers have been consistently under-reserving since 1997
A decline in investment income: Investment income declined by 23 percent in 2001.
Financial safety
Supply and demand for coverage: The number of med mal carriers has dropped in the past 5 years
Click here to see the full report on caps.

The message delivered by speakers at the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' recent "Decisions That Count" three-day conference on health care quality and patient safety in Chicago attended by physicians, nurses, attorneys and health care managers was that "The American media is failing us with health care," said Princeton University Professor of Political Economy Uwe E. Reinhardt, PhD. Dr. Reinhardt wondered what the public would do if news anchors mentioned in every broadcast that "another 120 people died needlessly" that day because of medical errors or some other quality failure.
National Quality Forum CEO Ken Kizer, MD, said it's time to recognize that "health care is a team sport" and noted that 80% of hands-on patient care in hospitals is delivered by someone other than a physician. He said simple things can be done to improve quality such as serving more nourishing food, requiring caregivers to get flu vaccinations and making sure hospital staff wash their hands between patients. George J. Annis, who chairs Boston University's Dept. of Health Law, cited efforts to get doctors to wash their hands as an example of how low the quality bar has been set.

"Each and every day, 18 New Yorkers die in the hospital due to negligent medical care," said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group. The groups called for a more open process in doctor discipline cases.
"Even when it comes to very basic information, we can't get it out of the Health Department," Horner said.
NYPIRG, the Center for Medical Consumers and the StateWide Senior Action Council released a report on New York Malpractice Monday based on Health Department statistics that stated among other things that enforcement was going down allowing more sanctioned doctors to continue practicing. In 1996, 62 percent of physicians cited lost their licenses for more than one month; by 2002 that was down to 44 percent.

Oncologists, unlike other doctors, often buy prescription drugs at discounted prices and sell them directly to patients at a significant profit rather than sending them to a pharmacy. Some say that these sales are unethical, arguing that profit-motive could effect what course of treatment a patient receives. They are in effect profiteering from the very sickness they are hired to treat.

Reacting to information about an October 28 "Firestorm" memo circulated within the Connecticut Legislature, CPR (Connecticut Patients' Rights Group) Executive Director and spokesperson Jean Rexford issued the following statement:
"We have learned that Connecticut Mutual Insurance Company authored an October 28, 2003 memo that generated a firestorm of concern among Connecticut legislators responsible for addressing the current medical malpractice insurance rate increase situation. The Medical society continues to grasp at any tactic possible to advance their agenda of a $250,000.00 cap on noneconomic malpractice damages within the legislature. Finding insufficient support among legislators, it resorts to misinformation and subterfuge.
There is no "crisis" in Connecticut, other than the egregiously high premiums being charged to doctors by insurers to compensate for losses on investments in a temporarily soft stock market. The US General Accounting Office investigated five so-called "crisis" states and found no "crisis." Ralph Nader just concluded a Connecticut study in September and found no "crisis." In October the Washington Monthly echoed many other organizations and publications when it reported that the 1970s California cap touted by caps advocates resulted in companies raising premiums 300 percent and more. Not until strict insurance reform was enacted was the rate of increase slowed.
Why are the doctors siding with the very insurance companies who are gouging them in so vehemently demanding caps on damages? Because they both want the same thing -- reduced liability for wrongdoing. The "CRISIS" campaign in Connecticut did not originate in Connecticut. It is a national fear campaign originating out of the motivations of insurance companies and other interests. This campaign seeks to make people afraid enough to give up their rights to take doctors who injure them to court.

Children and the elderly do not have economic damages, things like lost wages or lost wage-earning capacity. Ten-month-old children, and 80-year-old nursing home residents do not work. If a child or nursing home resident dies as a result of medical negligence, the only measure of damages available to them are non-economic damages, things like pain and suffering and mental anguish. Texas has enacted a new law that caps non-economic damages which will significantly prejudice the ability of children and the elderly to receive fair compensation for their injuries and/or wrongful deaths.
The new law, effective Sept. 1, caps non-economic damages at $750,000.

In 1962, the study of Federal Trials says, 11.5 percent of all civil cases in federal court went to trial. By last year, that number had dropped to 1.8 percent. And even though there are five times as many lawsuits today, the raw number of civil trials has dropped, too. They peaked in 1985 at 12,529. Last year, 4,569 civil cases were tried in federal court.
"What's documented here," William G. Young, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Boston, said in a telephone interview, "is nothing less than the passing of the common law adversarial system that is uniquely American."
The Federal Trial Court study, based on data compiled by the federal court system, was prepared by Marc Galanter, who teaches law at the University of Wisconsin and the London School of Economics, for the American Bar Association.
"This is a cultural shift of enormous significance," said Arthur Miller, a law professor at Harvard.

Do caps on awards really keep doctors' insurance premiums down? Both sides in the debate--doctors and insurers fighting for caps, and trial lawyers and patients fighting against them--are waging a war-by-anecdote. But clear away the dubious studies, the exaggerated line charts, the hysterical press releases, and look at the numbers, and the statistical case for caps is flimsy. Here a Business Week article exposes the following myths as untrue:
MYTH 1: Premiums have risen more slowly in states with caps on pain-and-suffering awards.
MYTH 2: Runaway jury awards are forcing insurers to raise rates.
MYTH 3: The number of mega-awards is growing.
MYTH 4: Courts are clogged with an exploding number of claims.
Their conclusion? "On this and many other key points, proponents of caps simply aren't coming up with the facts to make their case. Instead, they're relying on scare stories--always a bad starting point for making serious policy decisions."

Beginning with the collapse of the infamous energy giant Enron in December 2001, a wave of corporate fraud upended the U.S. Economy and the public's faith in the financial markets. But the seeds of this disaster were sown long before corporations like WorldCom, Adelphia, Xerox and others "re-stated" earnings. The corporate crisis in America is built on a quarter-century old push by the nation's largest businesses to deregulate everything. The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights has published a new book showing how the Republican anti-regulation movement has resulted in a failure to prosecute corporate crime or generally hold corporations accountable to basic ethical standards and the rule of law.

Welcome to the Medical Malpractice Blog site, where you will find links, articles, resources and statistics about medical malpractice in the United States - and an occasional jab at the right wing feuled anti-consumer movement which seeks to limit citizen/victims acces to the civil justice system. A Tort Reform movement by insurance companies, big business and the AMA are threatening the erosion of fundamental civil rights and liberties such as the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial for malpractice victims as well as proposing caps or limits on how much innocent victims can recover against bad doctors who are not sanctionned. Right wing proponents want to flood the courts with big business suits yet want restrictions on the right of an injured individual. No caps have been propsed on the salaries of the excutives running large health care organizations and insurance companies however. It has truly become a political item where camps have drawn lines between republican and democrat, liberal and conservative. My apology to those looking for a balanced presentation of the issues; there has been such a proliferation of and distortion of anti-consumer materials fed to the press and media by insurance interests and the medical lobby that the time is now to set the record straight with some cold hard facts...and actual case stories, which no cap proponent wants to talk about.