Hi Skeet, sorry if I sounded down on doctors. I am not. When a client consults me with a potential med mal case, first level pass is screening interview. Few pass the cut. Medicine is an art, not a science, in the sense that results are not guaranteed and bad things happen. Most initial consults don't involve actual injury, e.g., the doctor said the leg was sprained, then a second x-ray a couple of days later shows a fracture. Mistakes happen, but without long-term or permanent injury, there is no case. The cost of litigation makes it impractical to obtain compensation for a couple of days of needless pain.
If there is long-term or permanent injury, I call do what I call a "quick and dirty" on it, obtain records, review the medical literature, review the records myself, I have a medical background, and members of my family are in medical field.
If it passes the second cut, I consult with physicians, generally ones employed by teaching colleges. If someone in the field says the injury was caused by a breach of the standard of care of a physician practicing in the field, I proced with the case. First, I try to settle out of court. If I can't, then I file suit and go from there.
If I litigate, then I use physicians as expert witnesses. Contrary to the impression of the general public, if the case has merit, it is not that hard to get a credible expert witness to testify on my client's behalf. Further, the client's other treating physicians may support the case as well, although they tend to be in same community, and won't act as expert witness against a colleague.
I know that there are a lot of silly lawsuits against doctors, just as there are a lot of silly lawsuits against everyone. Because I only get paid if I win, I don't waste my time on silly cases. I have faith in the collective intelligence of the local juries. By the way, I don't work in Washington, D.C., proper. Juries in urban areas are more generous than juries in suburban areas, partly due I think to less education, they are more susceptible to pettifoggery, more gullible to arguments of the handsome silver-tongued devils in the navy blue suits. Whether this is true or not, I don't know, but it is true that minority juries tend to be more generous. Maybe they just know better what it means to suffer. Out here in the burbs, the audience is a tougher sell, and I don't take iffy cases.
I don't think any less of physicians as a group than any other group of working stiffs, what I don't like is the sense of entitlement, that having sacrificed and worked hard, now they are entitled to get rich. I don't know any other group of people who think that. Do you?
CobaltBlue |
