Doctoring and Lawyering: Mixing As Well As Vinegar and Oil

One of the greatest sites on the web is the Manhattan Institutes' Trial Lawyers Inc, which reports on the industrial behemoth that the lawyering business has become and the problems it is creating for American society. I finally got around to doing an in-depth reading of their newest piece, the one on Lawyering and the Health Care Industry, and it contains some truly scary stuff. Perhaps the most frightening was the information they gave about Obstetricians.

Did you know that "of the 46,000 members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 76 percent have been sued at least once, 57 percent at least twice, and 41.5 percent three times or more?!?" Have 3/4 of the Obstetricians in the United States committed such grievous errors that they deserved to be sued? Do 41.5% of the Obstetricians in this country stink so bad at their jobs that they deserved three or more court dates? This means that the United States has either the worst Obstetricians in the world or that lawsuits have gotten out of hand. Now, since Doctors in the United States generally receive more, and better, training than Doctors in every other country in the world, I'm going to assume that lawyers are the cause of these high Malpractice case rates.

Furthermore, in these cases "million-dollar verdicts are now the norm" and the average payout is "$4.7 million;" which is odd when you consider that, according to the U.S Census Bureau, the medical cost of having a baby is between $5,000 and $12,000. So, let's assume that you paid $12,000 to have your baby delivered, and then sued the Doctor for $4.7 million. That would mean that you received, as your court payout, a sum that is over 391 times as large as what you paid for the original procedure. Holy Shiite! Is a person really entitled to that much of a payout?

And that's, of course, assuming that these cases are due to actual 'Medical Malpractice' in the first place. Which they are not. As Trial Lawyer Inc notes: "nearly half of malpractice suits—49.5 percent—are dropped, dismissed, or settled without payment." As for the other 50.5% that do go to court or result in payouts, many are still simply bogus lawsuits. Additionally, the majority of these cases are from Medical Malpractice 'hot spots' such as New York State. As a result Obstetricians in these areas are either, retiring, moving to other areas, or refusing to perform high risk procedures. If the onslaught against Obstetricians continues in these areas, the midwife may come back into style.

You know the crisis for American Obstetricians is bad when the Journal of the American Medical Association carries an article entitled: "Who Will Deliver Our Grandchildren?" Honestly, the information in Trial Lawyers Inc.'s article is warning sign number 2,943,453,234,785 that this country has a problem with frivolous lawsuits. And it further depicts how, in the long run, those lawsuits hurt the patients every bit as much as the Doctors. The reforms passed in some states, like Texas, are working; but it's time to get the ball rolling everywhere. Indeed, it is to be hoped that we as a counrty can get reform started and moving quickly, so that this problem gets solved by the time my Grandchildren come along.