In a med-mal case, ‘who loses least?’

Rarely do I receive a call from a physician who wants to talk about his or her recent experience as a defendant in a medical malpractice case. We have printed only one such report, in Autumn 2007, “A doctor on trial: David Sugarbaker tells his story.”
And who can blame a doctor who’s finally finished with a trial for not reporting his or her story? Physicians who go to trial report feelings of self-doubt and anxiety, wanting nothing more than to put the entire ordeal behind them as soon as possible.

That’s why a recent series of blog posts entitled “The Trial of a WhiteCoat” caught my eye.

Here is an excerpt:

“Medical malpractice is a game where neither side wins. On one side, patients suffer bad outcomes – some due to medical negligence, some not. On the other side, an accusation of medical malpractice cuts to the soul of any medical provider … During the many years inherent to any malpractice litigation, both sides are forced to relive these bad moments over and over again. Both sides are forced to listen to other people question their actions and accuse them for being at fault. It isn’t a matter of who wins in a lawsuit, it’s a matter of who loses least.”

This excerpt accompanies the genuine and complete expose that an emergency room physician dubbed “WhiteCoat” began writing in June on the WhiteCoat’s Call Room blog at Emergency Physicians Monthly.

While it’s clear that a med-mal trial doesn’t make either side feel like a true winner – no matter what the legal result – this series encapsulates a rarely mentioned similarity between the patient and the doctor, the plaintiff and the defendant, whose uniquely private relationship has become a matter of public concern now that an injury is on the table.

Quite frankly, we need more doctors like WhiteCoat willing to share their stories. Open discussion of such cases significantly helps doctors who will face lawsuits in the future.

Could we already be seeing progress in this regard? In this era of blogging, instant information and medical professionals being more transparent about medical errors, the number of medical malpractice lawsuits filed in the state and in the nation has been trending down over the past several years. See the story on page 1 and the data on page 7.

Here’s hoping that’s a trend that continues.

Reni Gertner, MPH