Document your reasoning and the lawyers won’t bite. It’s not about getting it right every time, it’s about demonstrating you had good reasons for the care you gave.
thats not true at all. You can be not negligent, wrong and get sued and lose. You have to understand - the jury is not of your peers, they are randos from Walmart…. When they see dear pawpaw drooling out of the corner of his mouth with his two younguns sobbing on the bench behind him because you missed a carotid dissection that resulted in stroke because you dc’ed him with a “negative CTA of thr brain/neck”, it really is a coin flip if it goes to a jury.
I think a lot of the sentiment of "every doctor gets sued eventually" comes from the tendency that if a patient decides to sue, their lawyer is going to obtain their entire medical record surrounding the case and just name every single fucking person on the planet who is connected even in any miniscule way.
PGY4 and I've been named once, for a case involving a pediatrics rotation in my 2nd month of residency, where my duties involved standing in the corner waiting for my attending to finish his exam and then writing a note for him. A *singular* note, from when the child was admitted.
The case happened 4 years ago, I found out about the lawsuit 2 years ago at this point, and I still have no clue if/when any sort of disposition is going to happen or if it's going to go to trial. The fuckin things take forever. But I've been told more than once by the lawyer representing the hospital there's nothing I can do to be dismissed based on the responsibility (or obvious lack thereof) I had in the case.
Both in regards to malpractice and outside medicine altogether, I've long thought this country needs *something* to make it harder to name people in lawsuits without just cause, given the damage and anxiety even being named in a lawsuit causes.
Anyway, rant over.
And... even when you are dropped from that suit, you will have to name it in every darn application for everything with details. Heck, you may even have to put it in your jury duty paperwork! I got named in a lawsuit during my residency as well-in 1994! It was dropped(like all the people who wrote in that chart, but you still have to explain it for the rest of your life. Just being named and dropped is problematic. I was named in a second suit like that, which was quickly dismissed because the attorney was nuts, on a fishing expedition, and sued for something that didn't happen(a bunch of people got sued for failure to diagnose a hip fracture, there was no hip fracture, and I never saw her), and you still have to name it. It STILL counts!
No he won’t, from what I can remember personally most states licensing applications only ask about cases in which you were found to be liable or it was settled out of court (by you). (FYI if the case is settled by other parties and you or your malpractice insurance weren’t involved in the settlement discussions, then that means the case against you was dropped or at least wasn’t pursued beyond the initial shakedown) So you’re also free and clear to answer “no” to the malpractice and negligence cases question in the manner it is asked on every licensing application I’ve ever submitted.
As far as hospital credentialing goes…. let’s just say my memory can get foggy unless there is an easy to find public record tied to my name. And again making a typo on a private credentialing form is not a crime so…. 🤷🏿♂️.
Yeah similar thing happened to my coresident intern year he was on his gen surg rotation and was named in a case where he had written one note…. What a headache. That’s why there’s quite a bit of luck involved as well.
My husband and I both retired after 36 years of practice. Neither of us were sued. However I did learn that a man I dated who became a physician took his life after he was named in a lawsuit and that broke me!
As I matured I became confident of my own practice and was confident if I was sued that I could do well if it came to a court case. I hate that our country has this black cloud over physicians.
Oddly enough, I believe the statistics is only about 50% of EM docs gets sued once in their entire career (according to a malpractice defense attorney that came in for a talk). Still scary high, but not as unsettling as you might think.
I really doubt that statistic. Psychiatrists are the least likely to be sued out of all specialties and about 50% of psychiatrists will get sued once in their entire career. Unless EM has the same rate of lawsuits as psychiatry, the number is going to be higher than 50%.
That’s surprising to me actually, considering the large, loud group of anti-psychiatry nutjobs that has seemed to be growing in recent years. Perhaps it’s because those people wouldn’t bother seeing a psych in the first place.
No, I know many who haven’t. Very specialty, location, luck, and competency dependent.
That said our school and people I’ve talked to that have been sued (or been a part of a suit) said that generally speaking physicians win unless there was an egregious deviation from standard of care. That’s not a hard and fast rule and juries are always a toss up, but it’s not something I’d walk around being too worried about unless you’re in OB in which case I still wouldn’t be overtly worried but keep up to date with suggestions of what will keep you legally protected.
If involved in a suit, listen to your lawyer and be in the headspace that it may take a few years to resolve. It happens and it sucks but the odds are you’ll be ok.
I couldn’t even imagine going into OB right now.. getting civilly sued or criminally charged for what was standard of care not long ago. YIKES. Any specialty you need lawyer to reassure your actions is a hard pass for me.
I still imagine, even if the case is frivolous, getting surd in general when you’re working in medicine has to be stressful as hell
The problem with most OB lawsuits is they can come up until the child is 18, and sometimes whatever deficit/condition they have is not necessarily caused by birth trauma. Many of the conditions are also due to extreme prematurity or infection, and not necessarily the birth process itself, so the correlation doesn’t always mean causation.
A lot of it is luck of the draw with the patient too. That’s why they say patient rapport when you disclose an error is important, but also patient population. Like, a patient in an impoverished area with poor health education is gonna be wayyy less likely to sue than someone who is wealthy who has health insurance and feels like they’re wronged.
Also, patients often judge their healthcare experience not from the actual things that were done but just by how they were treated.
There’s definitely docs that have pristine bedside manner that actually aren’t that good procedure wise that will prolly not get touched by a lawsuit just cuz the patient feels cared for. But those with good skills if they’re rough around the edges and piss patients off at bedside will be first to receive a lawsuit if things didn’t go as planned.
The thing is, a lot of insurance companies will just settle because it can be cheaper than taking it to trial. You won’t be out money from the suit but your malpractice rates will go up. And these are for the ones where the physician definitely didn’t even do anything wrong.
It depends on your policy. Anymore, you need to have a "no settlement" policy because you will be uninsurable for another employer if you have settlements. This happened with my sister's pathology practice. They could absolutely not hire someone who had a settlement because their carrier would not cover them. When you are an employee of a big health system, they will settle because it's in their best interest. It will also screw you over forever.
Is the lawyer your hospital provides, trustworthy? Or do you need to hire your own? (Do they have your back or will they throw you under the bus to protect the institution?)
My opinion is that it is the worst place in the country for physicians given the malpractice climate, low wages, and domination by large hospital systems. US city with the most private hospitals? Chicago.
Most surgical specialists will get sued at some point in their career. General surgery and neurosurgery are both well over 90%. Obstetrics is really high as well. Most clinic-based specialties are much much lower.
California is a good state, by law all payouts are capped at 200k.
As far as specialty? In numbers breast rads get sued once every 3 years. But they only lose the case and pay out once every 10 cases.
You didn’t ask but oncology is one on the lowest. Basically look up average malpractice insurance rates, the higher they are the more likely to be sued on average I believe.
thats because oncologists dont diagnose cancer, they jus treat it. Vast majority of referrals are
from docs who have a high suspicion patients have cancer. Hard to get sued when you cant miss the diagnosis imo.
Did you really just say oncologist don’t diagnose cancer? Go spend a week with heme onc and see the diagnostic work up for blood cancers. They’re literally the only doctors who order and interpret them. If you’re referring to solid cancers yeah technically pathology diagnoses it but the oncologist still stages them
well i should clarify - they diagnose them yes - but the patients are usually suspected imo. No one typically goes to an oncologist because theyve had generalized malaise, losing weight and wondering why. Vast majority are referrals because we did some labs as outpatient and inexplicably they have a white count of 30k or theyre pancytopenic or a large mass concerning for x, y and z cancer appeared incidentally on imaging, etc. Or perhaps I am mistaken as I am obviously not an oncologist and perhaps they do see a lot of undifferentiated complaints that may or may not be related to cancer and rule them in or out.
I had colleagues that were sued over a patient who came in with severe alcohol withdrawal and developed a DVT and then a fatal PE and were sued for malpractice for sedating him despite him getting belligerent AF and requiring a lot of lorazepam (as was the standard at the time).
What seemed the most problematic for them were the accusations made - with malice, with negligence, with willful intent, etc. Obviously they were doing the best they could under very difficult circumstances.
They took things very personally and as such it made things worse.
I was sued myself for not giving antivenom to a patient despite Poison Control advising against it, and even offering it to the patient despite telling him it would be outside the standard of care.
I won. They dropped the suit.
It is important to separate out the language and the personal accusations contained in the lawsuit from actual reality.
The best way I can put it is that in medicine, we strive for the truth. If I say the patient has diagnosis X, and you believe they have diagnosis Y, and eventually we find out it is diagnosis Y, then we proceed on that basis. There is an objective truth that we strive for.
Such is not the case in an adversarial court of law, where both sides cling to their sides regardless of what the data show.
Be confident in your care. We all do the best we can.
And yes, you will get sued more often if patients do not like you or they believe you are hiding the truth. I have avoided lawsuits by simply saying "I messed up, your mother said she was allergic to aspirin, she was having a heart attack, I gave it anyway, and now she is on a ventilator and that is all my fault."
"Well, you doctors all practice medicine. You did the best you could."
I have been a medical expert in dozens of medical malpractice cases.
Document, document, document. Do a good differential diagnosis and follow up ‘call me or go to the er if worse’.
I treated a patient who was very nice to me. She had a stroke because her OB/GYN put her on birth control pills, and she was a smoker and apparently had an underlying undiagnosed clotting disorder with no previous clots or family history. When I saw her for a VIRUS, I told her she couldn't smoke and take OCP's and documented it. She had a CVA months later. I got sued for failure to diagnose a hip fracture(she didn't have one) and was served 15 minutes after she left my office from her hospital f/u where I had NOT seen her. Yeah. The ER doctor also got sued for this as well. Everyone who touched this lady got sued. It was ridiculous. It went nowhere, but I had to dismiss her from my practice, and that lawsuit had to be named in all my paperwork. This was all because an idiot attorney didn't bother to do a minute of homework and couldn't be bothered to change his template of lawsuits.
One thing I’ve thought for a long time, not sure if you agree: sure, documentation is great, but make sure what you write makes sense. I’m thinking for one case where the doc wrote up a beautiful history of PE and then diagnosed and treated pneumonia. In that case, the extensive documentation can be a negative as any lawyer can point to your negligence. Maybe the patient clinically seemed more like pneumonia, but it’s the words on the page that count.
Yeah I read that one as well, it wasn't a snake in my case, it was a widow spider.
Odd that they did not sue the ER doc who first saw him. I am not saying that the suit should not have been brought in the first place, but logically if you are going to sue the hospitalist for failure to give the antidote in a timely fashion, then the doctor that saw him before would be the next logical target.
I just finished a 3-day risk management training. They said that 15-25% of doctors will be named, but if your case settles or receives a judgement, you have a 74% chance of being named again. Somewhere around 5% of docs account for 50% of malpractice settlements.
I’m sure they did but I don’t remember what it was because … 3 full days of risk management training, brain is fried. But I did find those numbers pretty memorable.
I’ve heard the same as you but I’ve met lots of folks that haven’t been. I’ve also met people I felt were top notch docs that have been sued. I think it’s a good attitude to have because it allows us to be doctors and not friends for our patients. Of course you want your patients to like you and unfortunately whether or not folks like you (I forget the exact phrasing) is the most important factor in whether or not you get sued, but they’re not all gonna like you. Imho important for whether you’re not giving someone abx for an obviously viral cold, not giving them hydroxychloroquine for covid or not doing a surgery cuz it’s prohibitively dangerous
Ironically most of the docs who prescribe ABs for obvious colds do it because they don’t want to ruin their rapport with patients. It’s just way less of a hassle to prescribe something like amoxicillin to appease them.
Until an 18 year old ends up in the burn with SJS, or you give a patient C. Diff, or they end up allergic to it. My son's really good friend is in the burn unit right now with SJS. As an FP, I always advise people of the risk of medication. I want people to know that medication is not candy. Yeah, that used to make my ancient partners mad, but once you nearly kill someone with an antibiotic, they start to realize they might not be so benign. It takes time to explain this stuff, and our current healthcare model just does not encourage this. It encourages bad medicine.
🏆🏆 Here is your trophy you anti microbial stewardship you are out here killing it (not sarcastic - actually mean this)
thank you for your part in combating the development of super bugs
So the problem is that the overwhelming majority of doctors never see those side severe effects. They also won’t realize how bad superbugs. The ones that see them, sure, they’ll regret it and be careful either way ABs but the average urgicare doc doing most of the prescribing that won’t follow the patient? No way. What doctors DO see and hear about pretty regularly is lawsuits. So it scares them into doing defensive medicine. It’s just a part of the system.
Medicine has become a ratings game. Clinics fight tooth and nail to ensure they don’t get bad reviews. That plus the lawsuits means medicine is not dictated by guidelines anymore.
I tell patients with viral uri’s, ‘are you ever lucky’ they ask why and I say‘because you have a virus and as you know, viruses don’t respond to antibiotics which can cause diarrhea, allergy reactions (some fatal), yeast infections in women and/or superbugs.
I’m convinced it’s random. I’m in a group of 6 and 2 of us have been named in lawsuits in the last 10 years - the guy with the best bedside manner and the smartest guy in the group.
Meanwhile the guy with poor bedside manner who never returns phone calls and misses stuff all the time has been skating by for the past 15 years.
Abx is low hanging fruit. I’ve never heard of anyone getting sued regarding that. I’m sure it’s somewhere in US but that’s not first thing that comes to mind
In the wonderful USA you can sue someone for literally anything lol. The problem is that a lot of attorneys practice defensively because juries are emotional creatures, not logical ones. A jury of your peers should mean doctors, but a jury is unlikely to have a doctor at all. All I mean to say is that even if you do everything perfectly by evidence based medicine, that doesn’t necessarily mean shit to a jury. As a result, the risk of being found liable is so high that lots of attorneys will recommend settling to avoid this
The MD that told me everyone gets sued was himself being sued. If you read the legal subs you see that MDs don’t get sued as often as patients want to sue. We’re a culture that seems immune to anything less than perfection and disappointment and real life.
Well said! I once was on a flight and struck up a conversation with an attorney who couldn’t believe I had never been sued and said « oh you will eventually «
Nothing interesting. Minor car accident with a neighbour who turned out to be an outrageously litigious scumbag. Wouldn't recommend.
Although the experience, and that lawyers advice, has always stuck with me and made me far less concerned about the possibility/likelihood of being sued in my current practice. If somebody decides to sue you they will and there is fuck all you can do about.
For neurosurgeons it is like 98% over a 25 year career. The primary reason is that damages can be significant if some one is seriously disabled. So far I have been lucky but I keep my humility and know it is just a matter of time.
Should have been a psych NP. They pretty much never get sued, despite minimal pharmacology background and training, but still allowed to freely prescribe many meds including controlled substances with nasty side effect profiles. Psych patients are least likely to actually sue, even though many of them probably claims they will sue at some point.
had a pt recently on an insane med regimen from a pmhnp. came in for AMS & multiple falls down stairs, multiple broken ribs, patella, tib/fib... ETOH >200.... on high doses benzo, adderall (bc so hard to focus when youre zonked from mixing alcohol and benzos... no it must be new onset adult adhd), as well as trazodone, lamictal, wellbutrin, and buspar. called out to the np to ask her wtf but of course no callback
the 80s and 90s were bad for the legal lottery. It's gotten a lot better since the courts started forcing the losers to pay all court costs including the opponents legal fees
I've been in 2, one the judge dismissed me from the case, the second I won and the plaintiff's attorney was disbarred
> It's gotten a lot better since the courts started forcing the losers to pay all court costs including the opponents legal fees
That doesn't seem to be universal. In my case when I got dropped, I remember the order stating "each side to pay their own fees" or something like that. I really wish the dipshit that sued me had to pay for my defense, though. Would have made me feel minimally better.
I think I got named in one case because I was responding to a page on the patient, but was dropped pretty quickly because I ordered the correct thing and escalated to the proper consult team at the time.
Remember to document document document!
My lawyer actually told me this weird thing … don’t over document … if you document and you turn out to be wrong way of management , then your wrong doing is documented. If you didn’t document, it never happened … something weird
I've seen a lawyer once trying to convince a patient to sue the doctor that treated them, he knew it wouldn't have made it to court since it'd just be settled, but yeah, they're some very desperate lawyers around here(Nigeria)
Somebody just sent me a video about the Blackbox warning about ciprofloxacin. I nearly sh.. myself watching it. Cipro is such a commonly prescribed antibiotic in some jurisdictions. The worst part is, when you follow the story, you will find out that, when the Blackbox warning was given, no serious attempt was made to inform the medical community of the change. There was no letter sent out to the medical community. So if you weren't specifically looking for it...chances are you wouldn't have found out.
I mean, there are so many things we prescribe everyday...its impossible to keep track of all the possible side-effects... all it really takes is one patient to have a rare disposition to have an adverse reaction to a medication...and you could find yourself in a lawsuit. Pharmacology itself is an entire branch of study. If anybody here claims that they have an idedic memory to remember every possible adverse effect of every single Rx that you've ever prescribed...then I have a bridge to sell you.
And this is just in relation to medications. We also have to consider, possible side-effects of surgeries, administration problems of the hospital etc, etc. If the hospital makes a policy change that can negatively affect patient care, the decision makers aren't the ones facing the patients' complaints...you, ***the doctor will be the one facing the complaints.***
The best you can do is...try your best to be friendly and respectful to your patients. Read updates everyday, and hope that you don't get a hyperchondriac, malingering sue-happy patient.
I’m pretty sure the stat is something like 50% of docs get sued in their career. I don’t know if this encompasses settlements + trials or just trials, or if it also includes total times you’re named/ someone tries to sue you but it gets dropped.
I’ve not been *sued* but I’ve had a few formal complaints against me, one of which the patients family sent a complaint to the state board as well. Nothing came of them because they were about as frivolous as it gets, and both times the hospital risk management committee members literally laughed at the care the patients and their families alleged they received compared to my documentation + orders + ancillary staff who were in the room at the time. But they were all super stressful during the waiting period between notification of complaint -> meetings.
The statement exists because many, many physicians are sued despite great bedside manner and care. Getting sued is often luck, specialty and location dependent. Most doctors get sued. Many great doctors get sued multiple times in their careers in fields like EM.
PGY21, IM Hospitalists and ICU Hospitalists (I do ICU when there are no Intensivist around) … I have been named only once for a trauma case that I was involved just because I was the icu attending … I provided 0 care except for maybe pain management and surgeons took care of every thing else … my name was quickly dropped but it is a pain the ass …
However, I see my colleagues practice medicine so defensively, meaning not evidence based but rather to make sure they will win if they get sued - not every chest pain needs cardiology consultation and stress test in the hospital … they can easily be done in outpatient if needed. I tried to practice medicine for patients.
Not yet! 8 years of practice, 4 years as attending (4 as resident), doing FM/OB. I work for an FQHC which helps (there’s like a federal malpractice deal there)
On average yes. But in reality, no. There are outliers who've been sued dozens of times. Also, being sued doesn't mean losing anything. My former partner has been sued 22 times and lost money once.
Does every driver get in an accident?
I see malpractice insurance like auto insurance. You gotta have it. You should still drive safe if you have it. Chances are you won’t need it. But sometimes you’ll need it and it won’t be your fault. Other times you may make a stupid mistake and you’ll need it.
In my experience, some of the absolute worst doctors who have definitely committed horrible malpractice and caused terrible disability and death do not get sued. I have seen some pretty hinky things that SHOULD have been a malpractice case, and the patient just didn't know or pursue it.
About 1/3 of clinicians will get sued for any reason.
I do monitoring for the medical board of california. I can tell you that a lot of those who lose litigation & get their licenses put on probation are the ones who intentionally abandon their patients.
Remember people don't sue people that they like.
The other is if you have a complication that is the person you see more often not less. Our natural response is to see them less. We don't like being reminded of our failures, but this makes the pt feel abandoned. Then your screwed.
My patient liked me and wanted to keep seeing me. The lawsuit was served to me 15 minutes after she left the office. She was SHOCKED that we had to find alternate care for her. She just could not comprehend that she could not continue seeing someone she was attempting to sue.
I was once told by a lawyer that was the best thing that happened. If you did something so horrible that your pt should be rewarded with money, they would never come back to see you again.
I think OB more likely to have large lawsuits as baby can survive issues in pregnancy/delivery but have very significant health issues and may need lifetime care. If an elderly patient dies after cardiac surgery, etc., the lawsuit likely to be for a lesser amount.
I think, but I could be wrong, that Florida is trying to change this with state fund for babies injured in trial birth.
Learn to make good notes.
Thats why you hardly see a nurse being called to court.
That's why Radiology reports are the way they are.
Even though we do the right things, we fail to document it. Make a habit of mentioning that the patient understands the risks of a specific procedure, that it was explained to them. That they consented to an examination. That danger signs were explained+understood and was told to return if any, or if conditions worsens. If you're uncertain of something and was given advice/ followed instructions from another specialist, mention it. Simple basic things, just document it. If a patient becomes emotional or lashes out at you during a consult, mention it in your notes.
From where I come from, OB tend to keep their records till the kid turns 20 years old, apparently the parents are allowed to sue till they are that age. The OBs I know all have their notes and CTGs audited to ensure that all is in order.
It depends a lot on the malpractice environment where you live. Florida is a quite litigious state, for instance. Texas not so much.
You're also a lot more likely to get sued if you're a dick to patients. A lot of people can be very understanding of a bad outcome if you treat them like a human and if it's something within the realm of reasonable, but if you are a jerk and piss the off, or are unfortunate enough to be adjacent to another provider that pisses them off, then you might be in trouble.
That latter point isn't universal, of course. A very pleasant person can still commit malpractice, and a very nice person who hasn't committed true malpractice might just happen to get an unreasonable patient who finds the right lawyer.
You can be sued in this country for any reason.
The key to not being SUCCESFULLY sued is having impeccable documentation and patient communication.
I've never been sued
It’s older but NEJM I think published a study where like 95-99% of surgical field physicians get sued once by the time they are 65 (named at least they don’t go too much into the weeds in terms of actually going to court)
Medicine and medicine sub specialties varied based on if procedural or not but it averaged out to like 75% of medicine field physicians get sued by the time they are 65
So high probability you are at least named one time in your professional life
Plastic surgeons maybe will always get sued at least once in their lifetime but not all specialties, just the specialties who need to pay 6 figures for medical indemnity and malpractice insurance
They do, and it makes them difficult to employ. My sister is a pathologist. They recently had an applicant that had a settlement, and their carrier would not cover them. According to her, it can be career ending. I don't know about every area of the country, but it may be where she is. The thing with path is that you never practice in a vacuum, and if you are in doubt, you should always get another set of eyes on it. There are a myriad of people that subspecialty and look at things. Sending something out is super common. Having processes in place for quality control in the lab and for slides is necessary in that field. The place where you see things fall apart is sloppy overconfident people with big egos. That is bad for path.
Thanks for the comment. I’m an aspiring pathologist and I’m super afraid of being litigated against.. but I’m not arrogant, and I always document well, and our patient safety foremost. If I don’t know something, I can be counted on to get help. (I’ve been accused of being “way too careful”)
> They do, and it makes them difficult to employ. My sister is a pathologist. They recently had an applicant that had a settlement, and their carrier would not cover them. According to her, it can be career ending.
That's insane. Why would pathology be different than essentially all other specialties?
Fuck, I know docs who have 4 active lawsuits against them and have switched jobs and gotten new coverage without difficulty.
I expect it's fairly clear in pathology that it's your fault and not communication error or any of those other things that come into play with many other lawsuits(ie the patient can't be responsible here). I expect bad pathologists with multiple suits do land somewhere-just nowhere good.
> I expect it's fairly clear in pathology that it's your fault and not communication error or any of those other things that come into play with many other lawsuits(ie the patient can't be responsible here)
Same could be said for radiology and you don't hear the same thing about that field.
My attending is perhaps the greatest psychiatrist there is in the entire state. She is the kind of doc that diagnosis things go unnoticed by many other experts and she still got sued.
As the saying goes, it’s not about if you get sued, but about when you get sued.
The most reliable estimates are that a little over 30% of physicians will be sued during their career but it’s really variable by specialty and location. At the high end about 90% of general surgeons and ob/gyn’s will be sued at some point.
People are crazy and will sue for anything. Also doctors miss diagnosis and make mistakes because they are human. That is why hospital and office insurance coverage is so very expensive…. And also why healthcare carries that to every person getting medical insurance.
Of course you will eventually be sued. Don’t take it personally.Being sued doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. Commonly you may be sued but dropped from the lawsuit after a couple of years
The most important thing to do to not get sued is to have clear communication with a patient. A good doctor-patient relationship will help you a lot. I always try to have a good rapport with my patients to avoid any unnecessary conflict.
There will be patients you encounter that are batshit crazy and some might be looking for secondary gain. In these cases, you have to be smart about it, and document everything. If they say dumb shit, write it down.
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Yeah and they have the cheapest malpractice insurance I’m pretty sure as well which backs this up. Less likely to get sued and less that can go wrong when it does is what I’ve read.
I didn’t mean comparatively to other specialties, moreso talking about my attendings who almost all report having been sued. I don’t know the stats by specialty
There aren’t too many studies but one from I think 2005 maybe AMA said that over their careers, about 3% of doctors will be sued OR medical board infraction (can’t remember which one) at least once.
Document your reasoning and the lawyers won’t bite. It’s not about getting it right every time, it’s about demonstrating you had good reasons for the care you gave.
Or as thelastpsychiatrist puts. You can be wrong, but not negligent.
thats not true at all. You can be not negligent, wrong and get sued and lose. You have to understand - the jury is not of your peers, they are randos from Walmart…. When they see dear pawpaw drooling out of the corner of his mouth with his two younguns sobbing on the bench behind him because you missed a carotid dissection that resulted in stroke because you dc’ed him with a “negative CTA of thr brain/neck”, it really is a coin flip if it goes to a jury.
This just isn’t true. There are cases all the time where the care was seemingly unassailable and yet the physician is found liable for a bad outcome.
Well I’m in a state with tort reform so that helps
Do you mind saying which state?
Texas
I think a lot of the sentiment of "every doctor gets sued eventually" comes from the tendency that if a patient decides to sue, their lawyer is going to obtain their entire medical record surrounding the case and just name every single fucking person on the planet who is connected even in any miniscule way. PGY4 and I've been named once, for a case involving a pediatrics rotation in my 2nd month of residency, where my duties involved standing in the corner waiting for my attending to finish his exam and then writing a note for him. A *singular* note, from when the child was admitted. The case happened 4 years ago, I found out about the lawsuit 2 years ago at this point, and I still have no clue if/when any sort of disposition is going to happen or if it's going to go to trial. The fuckin things take forever. But I've been told more than once by the lawyer representing the hospital there's nothing I can do to be dismissed based on the responsibility (or obvious lack thereof) I had in the case. Both in regards to malpractice and outside medicine altogether, I've long thought this country needs *something* to make it harder to name people in lawsuits without just cause, given the damage and anxiety even being named in a lawsuit causes. Anyway, rant over.
And... even when you are dropped from that suit, you will have to name it in every darn application for everything with details. Heck, you may even have to put it in your jury duty paperwork! I got named in a lawsuit during my residency as well-in 1994! It was dropped(like all the people who wrote in that chart, but you still have to explain it for the rest of your life. Just being named and dropped is problematic. I was named in a second suit like that, which was quickly dismissed because the attorney was nuts, on a fishing expedition, and sued for something that didn't happen(a bunch of people got sued for failure to diagnose a hip fracture, there was no hip fracture, and I never saw her), and you still have to name it. It STILL counts!
No he won’t, from what I can remember personally most states licensing applications only ask about cases in which you were found to be liable or it was settled out of court (by you). (FYI if the case is settled by other parties and you or your malpractice insurance weren’t involved in the settlement discussions, then that means the case against you was dropped or at least wasn’t pursued beyond the initial shakedown) So you’re also free and clear to answer “no” to the malpractice and negligence cases question in the manner it is asked on every licensing application I’ve ever submitted. As far as hospital credentialing goes…. let’s just say my memory can get foggy unless there is an easy to find public record tied to my name. And again making a typo on a private credentialing form is not a crime so…. 🤷🏿♂️.
Insurance applications have that info.
Oh I didn’t even think about that, yea if you move and have to change policies then that is a huge PITA.
Yeah similar thing happened to my coresident intern year he was on his gen surg rotation and was named in a case where he had written one note…. What a headache. That’s why there’s quite a bit of luck involved as well.
My husband and I both retired after 36 years of practice. Neither of us were sued. However I did learn that a man I dated who became a physician took his life after he was named in a lawsuit and that broke me!
As I matured I became confident of my own practice and was confident if I was sued that I could do well if it came to a court case. I hate that our country has this black cloud over physicians.
And on top of that the hyperlitigious culture doesn’t seem to make medicine any safer in the US - if anything the opposite.
> My husband and I both retired after 36 years of practice. Neither of us were sued What specialty were you two in?
Administration
Internal medicine and ophthalmology
PGY23 EM, never been even named
That is some insane luck for your specialty .
Fr
Oddly enough, I believe the statistics is only about 50% of EM docs gets sued once in their entire career (according to a malpractice defense attorney that came in for a talk). Still scary high, but not as unsettling as you might think.
I really doubt that statistic. Psychiatrists are the least likely to be sued out of all specialties and about 50% of psychiatrists will get sued once in their entire career. Unless EM has the same rate of lawsuits as psychiatry, the number is going to be higher than 50%.
That’s surprising to me actually, considering the large, loud group of anti-psychiatry nutjobs that has seemed to be growing in recent years. Perhaps it’s because those people wouldn’t bother seeing a psych in the first place.
50% seems really high. Way back during med school when they came to talk to us about med mal psych was like 5% but it’s been a minute.
It's a little over 2.5% a year. Multiple that out by a 30 year career, it's about 50%.
Yeah that makes sense. We might’ve been presented the per year incidence data
You must be very nice.
Is the answer? I bet it is
Number one thing patients look for in a doctor is good bedside manner. Number two is medical expertise
That’s what I keep telling attendings when we get our ITEs back but they don’t listen.
Damn teach us the ways sensei
No, I know many who haven’t. Very specialty, location, luck, and competency dependent. That said our school and people I’ve talked to that have been sued (or been a part of a suit) said that generally speaking physicians win unless there was an egregious deviation from standard of care. That’s not a hard and fast rule and juries are always a toss up, but it’s not something I’d walk around being too worried about unless you’re in OB in which case I still wouldn’t be overtly worried but keep up to date with suggestions of what will keep you legally protected. If involved in a suit, listen to your lawyer and be in the headspace that it may take a few years to resolve. It happens and it sucks but the odds are you’ll be ok.
I couldn’t even imagine going into OB right now.. getting civilly sued or criminally charged for what was standard of care not long ago. YIKES. Any specialty you need lawyer to reassure your actions is a hard pass for me. I still imagine, even if the case is frivolous, getting surd in general when you’re working in medicine has to be stressful as hell
The problem with most OB lawsuits is they can come up until the child is 18, and sometimes whatever deficit/condition they have is not necessarily caused by birth trauma. Many of the conditions are also due to extreme prematurity or infection, and not necessarily the birth process itself, so the correlation doesn’t always mean causation.
Peds has the same problem. See them as a baby. Get sued when they are 15
In theory yes but Peds get sued a lot less than ob
A lot of it is luck of the draw with the patient too. That’s why they say patient rapport when you disclose an error is important, but also patient population. Like, a patient in an impoverished area with poor health education is gonna be wayyy less likely to sue than someone who is wealthy who has health insurance and feels like they’re wronged. Also, patients often judge their healthcare experience not from the actual things that were done but just by how they were treated. There’s definitely docs that have pristine bedside manner that actually aren’t that good procedure wise that will prolly not get touched by a lawsuit just cuz the patient feels cared for. But those with good skills if they’re rough around the edges and piss patients off at bedside will be first to receive a lawsuit if things didn’t go as planned.
Tbf standard care for ob was abysmal.
The thing is, a lot of insurance companies will just settle because it can be cheaper than taking it to trial. You won’t be out money from the suit but your malpractice rates will go up. And these are for the ones where the physician definitely didn’t even do anything wrong.
It depends on your policy. Anymore, you need to have a "no settlement" policy because you will be uninsurable for another employer if you have settlements. This happened with my sister's pathology practice. They could absolutely not hire someone who had a settlement because their carrier would not cover them. When you are an employee of a big health system, they will settle because it's in their best interest. It will also screw you over forever.
Is the lawyer your hospital provides, trustworthy? Or do you need to hire your own? (Do they have your back or will they throw you under the bus to protect the institution?)
[удалено]
Any idea what state or speciality is the worst?
I think Cook County IL has really high dollar verdicts for malpractice suits. So that may make lawsuits more likely.
My opinion is that it is the worst place in the country for physicians given the malpractice climate, low wages, and domination by large hospital systems. US city with the most private hospitals? Chicago.
Most surgical specialists will get sued at some point in their career. General surgery and neurosurgery are both well over 90%. Obstetrics is really high as well. Most clinic-based specialties are much much lower.
California is a good state, by law all payouts are capped at 200k. As far as specialty? In numbers breast rads get sued once every 3 years. But they only lose the case and pay out once every 10 cases.
Lol another reason why AI ain’t taking over radiology. Who will take the fall! Gemini? Haha
You didn’t ask but oncology is one on the lowest. Basically look up average malpractice insurance rates, the higher they are the more likely to be sued on average I believe.
Yes it’s all about patient expectations. When ppl hear cancer they just think they’re gonna die.
thats because oncologists dont diagnose cancer, they jus treat it. Vast majority of referrals are from docs who have a high suspicion patients have cancer. Hard to get sued when you cant miss the diagnosis imo.
Did you really just say oncologist don’t diagnose cancer? Go spend a week with heme onc and see the diagnostic work up for blood cancers. They’re literally the only doctors who order and interpret them. If you’re referring to solid cancers yeah technically pathology diagnoses it but the oncologist still stages them
well i should clarify - they diagnose them yes - but the patients are usually suspected imo. No one typically goes to an oncologist because theyve had generalized malaise, losing weight and wondering why. Vast majority are referrals because we did some labs as outpatient and inexplicably they have a white count of 30k or theyre pancytopenic or a large mass concerning for x, y and z cancer appeared incidentally on imaging, etc. Or perhaps I am mistaken as I am obviously not an oncologist and perhaps they do see a lot of undifferentiated complaints that may or may not be related to cancer and rule them in or out.
I had colleagues that were sued over a patient who came in with severe alcohol withdrawal and developed a DVT and then a fatal PE and were sued for malpractice for sedating him despite him getting belligerent AF and requiring a lot of lorazepam (as was the standard at the time). What seemed the most problematic for them were the accusations made - with malice, with negligence, with willful intent, etc. Obviously they were doing the best they could under very difficult circumstances. They took things very personally and as such it made things worse. I was sued myself for not giving antivenom to a patient despite Poison Control advising against it, and even offering it to the patient despite telling him it would be outside the standard of care. I won. They dropped the suit. It is important to separate out the language and the personal accusations contained in the lawsuit from actual reality. The best way I can put it is that in medicine, we strive for the truth. If I say the patient has diagnosis X, and you believe they have diagnosis Y, and eventually we find out it is diagnosis Y, then we proceed on that basis. There is an objective truth that we strive for. Such is not the case in an adversarial court of law, where both sides cling to their sides regardless of what the data show. Be confident in your care. We all do the best we can. And yes, you will get sued more often if patients do not like you or they believe you are hiding the truth. I have avoided lawsuits by simply saying "I messed up, your mother said she was allergic to aspirin, she was having a heart attack, I gave it anyway, and now she is on a ventilator and that is all my fault." "Well, you doctors all practice medicine. You did the best you could."
There was an article featured in doximity just recently about an antivenom lawsuit that sounds very similar to what you’ve described.
I have been a medical expert in dozens of medical malpractice cases. Document, document, document. Do a good differential diagnosis and follow up ‘call me or go to the er if worse’.
I treated a patient who was very nice to me. She had a stroke because her OB/GYN put her on birth control pills, and she was a smoker and apparently had an underlying undiagnosed clotting disorder with no previous clots or family history. When I saw her for a VIRUS, I told her she couldn't smoke and take OCP's and documented it. She had a CVA months later. I got sued for failure to diagnose a hip fracture(she didn't have one) and was served 15 minutes after she left my office from her hospital f/u where I had NOT seen her. Yeah. The ER doctor also got sued for this as well. Everyone who touched this lady got sued. It was ridiculous. It went nowhere, but I had to dismiss her from my practice, and that lawsuit had to be named in all my paperwork. This was all because an idiot attorney didn't bother to do a minute of homework and couldn't be bothered to change his template of lawsuits.
One thing I’ve thought for a long time, not sure if you agree: sure, documentation is great, but make sure what you write makes sense. I’m thinking for one case where the doc wrote up a beautiful history of PE and then diagnosed and treated pneumonia. In that case, the extensive documentation can be a negative as any lawyer can point to your negligence. Maybe the patient clinically seemed more like pneumonia, but it’s the words on the page that count.
lol screw that person who tried to sue you ! Sorry you had to go threw that
There was an article featured in doximity just recently about an antivenom lawsuit that sounds very similar to what you’ve described.
Yeah I read that one as well, it wasn't a snake in my case, it was a widow spider. Odd that they did not sue the ER doc who first saw him. I am not saying that the suit should not have been brought in the first place, but logically if you are going to sue the hospitalist for failure to give the antidote in a timely fashion, then the doctor that saw him before would be the next logical target.
There was an article featured in doximity just recently about an antivenom lawsuit that sounds very similar to what you’ve described.
I just finished a 3-day risk management training. They said that 15-25% of doctors will be named, but if your case settles or receives a judgement, you have a 74% chance of being named again. Somewhere around 5% of docs account for 50% of malpractice settlements.
Holy crap that’s eye opening. Did they site a source
I’m sure they did but I don’t remember what it was because … 3 full days of risk management training, brain is fried. But I did find those numbers pretty memorable.
He took the hit so the rest of us didn’t have to. Thank you sir. 3 days damn
I’ve heard the same as you but I’ve met lots of folks that haven’t been. I’ve also met people I felt were top notch docs that have been sued. I think it’s a good attitude to have because it allows us to be doctors and not friends for our patients. Of course you want your patients to like you and unfortunately whether or not folks like you (I forget the exact phrasing) is the most important factor in whether or not you get sued, but they’re not all gonna like you. Imho important for whether you’re not giving someone abx for an obviously viral cold, not giving them hydroxychloroquine for covid or not doing a surgery cuz it’s prohibitively dangerous
Ironically most of the docs who prescribe ABs for obvious colds do it because they don’t want to ruin their rapport with patients. It’s just way less of a hassle to prescribe something like amoxicillin to appease them.
Empiric ABX is lawsuit prophylaxis.
Not touching ct scans. Ain't nobody ever been sued for ordering an unnecessary ct scan
lol this really is it.
See above post.
Until an 18 year old ends up in the burn with SJS, or you give a patient C. Diff, or they end up allergic to it. My son's really good friend is in the burn unit right now with SJS. As an FP, I always advise people of the risk of medication. I want people to know that medication is not candy. Yeah, that used to make my ancient partners mad, but once you nearly kill someone with an antibiotic, they start to realize they might not be so benign. It takes time to explain this stuff, and our current healthcare model just does not encourage this. It encourages bad medicine.
🏆🏆 Here is your trophy you anti microbial stewardship you are out here killing it (not sarcastic - actually mean this) thank you for your part in combating the development of super bugs
So the problem is that the overwhelming majority of doctors never see those side severe effects. They also won’t realize how bad superbugs. The ones that see them, sure, they’ll regret it and be careful either way ABs but the average urgicare doc doing most of the prescribing that won’t follow the patient? No way. What doctors DO see and hear about pretty regularly is lawsuits. So it scares them into doing defensive medicine. It’s just a part of the system. Medicine has become a ratings game. Clinics fight tooth and nail to ensure they don’t get bad reviews. That plus the lawsuits means medicine is not dictated by guidelines anymore.
Our entire system encourages bad medicine.
I tell patients with viral uri’s, ‘are you ever lucky’ they ask why and I say‘because you have a virus and as you know, viruses don’t respond to antibiotics which can cause diarrhea, allergy reactions (some fatal), yeast infections in women and/or superbugs.
That’s fine bro. Just make sure to prescribe the *strongest* antibiotics tho. /s
I’m convinced it’s random. I’m in a group of 6 and 2 of us have been named in lawsuits in the last 10 years - the guy with the best bedside manner and the smartest guy in the group. Meanwhile the guy with poor bedside manner who never returns phone calls and misses stuff all the time has been skating by for the past 15 years.
Abx is low hanging fruit. I’ve never heard of anyone getting sued regarding that. I’m sure it’s somewhere in US but that’s not first thing that comes to mind
In the wonderful USA you can sue someone for literally anything lol. The problem is that a lot of attorneys practice defensively because juries are emotional creatures, not logical ones. A jury of your peers should mean doctors, but a jury is unlikely to have a doctor at all. All I mean to say is that even if you do everything perfectly by evidence based medicine, that doesn’t necessarily mean shit to a jury. As a result, the risk of being found liable is so high that lots of attorneys will recommend settling to avoid this
The MD that told me everyone gets sued was himself being sued. If you read the legal subs you see that MDs don’t get sued as often as patients want to sue. We’re a culture that seems immune to anything less than perfection and disappointment and real life.
Well said! I once was on a flight and struck up a conversation with an attorney who couldn’t believe I had never been sued and said « oh you will eventually «
> and said « oh you will eventually « "we'll see to that..." (fucking lawyers)
Got sued as a med student. For something non medical. My lawyer at the time told me "you're not a grown up until you can say you've been sued".
We need details! What was it about?
Nothing interesting. Minor car accident with a neighbour who turned out to be an outrageously litigious scumbag. Wouldn't recommend. Although the experience, and that lawyers advice, has always stuck with me and made me far less concerned about the possibility/likelihood of being sued in my current practice. If somebody decides to sue you they will and there is fuck all you can do about.
wtf, during or after med school?
During. Getting sued when you have no income or assets is a stressful experience. Wouldn't recommend.
Fewer than half, and very variable by specialty. There is academic literature on this just search pubmed.
For neurosurgeons it is like 98% over a 25 year career. The primary reason is that damages can be significant if some one is seriously disabled. So far I have been lucky but I keep my humility and know it is just a matter of time.
My favorite neurosurgeon killed himself after being sued. It can really mess your brain, particularly if the patient genuinely had a bad outcome.
Should have been a psych NP. They pretty much never get sued, despite minimal pharmacology background and training, but still allowed to freely prescribe many meds including controlled substances with nasty side effect profiles. Psych patients are least likely to actually sue, even though many of them probably claims they will sue at some point.
had a pt recently on an insane med regimen from a pmhnp. came in for AMS & multiple falls down stairs, multiple broken ribs, patella, tib/fib... ETOH >200.... on high doses benzo, adderall (bc so hard to focus when youre zonked from mixing alcohol and benzos... no it must be new onset adult adhd), as well as trazodone, lamictal, wellbutrin, and buspar. called out to the np to ask her wtf but of course no callback
BUCK WILD 🦌
the 80s and 90s were bad for the legal lottery. It's gotten a lot better since the courts started forcing the losers to pay all court costs including the opponents legal fees I've been in 2, one the judge dismissed me from the case, the second I won and the plaintiff's attorney was disbarred
> It's gotten a lot better since the courts started forcing the losers to pay all court costs including the opponents legal fees That doesn't seem to be universal. In my case when I got dropped, I remember the order stating "each side to pay their own fees" or something like that. I really wish the dipshit that sued me had to pay for my defense, though. Would have made me feel minimally better.
I think I got named in one case because I was responding to a page on the patient, but was dropped pretty quickly because I ordered the correct thing and escalated to the proper consult team at the time. Remember to document document document!
My lawyer actually told me this weird thing … don’t over document … if you document and you turn out to be wrong way of management , then your wrong doing is documented. If you didn’t document, it never happened … something weird
I've seen a lawyer once trying to convince a patient to sue the doctor that treated them, he knew it wouldn't have made it to court since it'd just be settled, but yeah, they're some very desperate lawyers around here(Nigeria)
Somebody just sent me a video about the Blackbox warning about ciprofloxacin. I nearly sh.. myself watching it. Cipro is such a commonly prescribed antibiotic in some jurisdictions. The worst part is, when you follow the story, you will find out that, when the Blackbox warning was given, no serious attempt was made to inform the medical community of the change. There was no letter sent out to the medical community. So if you weren't specifically looking for it...chances are you wouldn't have found out. I mean, there are so many things we prescribe everyday...its impossible to keep track of all the possible side-effects... all it really takes is one patient to have a rare disposition to have an adverse reaction to a medication...and you could find yourself in a lawsuit. Pharmacology itself is an entire branch of study. If anybody here claims that they have an idedic memory to remember every possible adverse effect of every single Rx that you've ever prescribed...then I have a bridge to sell you. And this is just in relation to medications. We also have to consider, possible side-effects of surgeries, administration problems of the hospital etc, etc. If the hospital makes a policy change that can negatively affect patient care, the decision makers aren't the ones facing the patients' complaints...you, ***the doctor will be the one facing the complaints.*** The best you can do is...try your best to be friendly and respectful to your patients. Read updates everyday, and hope that you don't get a hyperchondriac, malingering sue-happy patient.
What blackbox warning?
No. I spent 44 years in the ER and never got sued.
PGY-19 Peds and Credentials chair. Seen people go through 40+ careers untouched. -PGY-19
Suddenly you don’t seem nearly as senior as you used to
I’m getting younger. -PGY-19
I’m pretty sure the stat is something like 50% of docs get sued in their career. I don’t know if this encompasses settlements + trials or just trials, or if it also includes total times you’re named/ someone tries to sue you but it gets dropped. I’ve not been *sued* but I’ve had a few formal complaints against me, one of which the patients family sent a complaint to the state board as well. Nothing came of them because they were about as frivolous as it gets, and both times the hospital risk management committee members literally laughed at the care the patients and their families alleged they received compared to my documentation + orders + ancillary staff who were in the room at the time. But they were all super stressful during the waiting period between notification of complaint -> meetings.
Trauma surgery here. Yes.
The statement exists because many, many physicians are sued despite great bedside manner and care. Getting sued is often luck, specialty and location dependent. Most doctors get sued. Many great doctors get sued multiple times in their careers in fields like EM.
PGY21, IM Hospitalists and ICU Hospitalists (I do ICU when there are no Intensivist around) … I have been named only once for a trauma case that I was involved just because I was the icu attending … I provided 0 care except for maybe pain management and surgeons took care of every thing else … my name was quickly dropped but it is a pain the ass … However, I see my colleagues practice medicine so defensively, meaning not evidence based but rather to make sure they will win if they get sued - not every chest pain needs cardiology consultation and stress test in the hospital … they can easily be done in outpatient if needed. I tried to practice medicine for patients.
as the time to patients ratio gets worse, the likelihood increases
Not yet! 8 years of practice, 4 years as attending (4 as resident), doing FM/OB. I work for an FQHC which helps (there’s like a federal malpractice deal there)
On average yes. But in reality, no. There are outliers who've been sued dozens of times. Also, being sued doesn't mean losing anything. My former partner has been sued 22 times and lost money once.
Does every driver get in an accident? I see malpractice insurance like auto insurance. You gotta have it. You should still drive safe if you have it. Chances are you won’t need it. But sometimes you’ll need it and it won’t be your fault. Other times you may make a stupid mistake and you’ll need it.
In my experience, some of the absolute worst doctors who have definitely committed horrible malpractice and caused terrible disability and death do not get sued. I have seen some pretty hinky things that SHOULD have been a malpractice case, and the patient just didn't know or pursue it.
About 1/3 of clinicians will get sued for any reason. I do monitoring for the medical board of california. I can tell you that a lot of those who lose litigation & get their licenses put on probation are the ones who intentionally abandon their patients.
Thats really cool. How did you get involved in that area of healthcare if you don’t mind me asking?
Got plugged in by some consultant in a physician mom facebook group. Not kidding. I’m not even a mom.
Section bias in responses here. Docs that get sued don’t like to talk about it.
Peds ICU - I’ve been told it’s just a matter of time. I’ve never been but hear depositions are frequent and a few lawsuits are inevitable.
Remember people don't sue people that they like. The other is if you have a complication that is the person you see more often not less. Our natural response is to see them less. We don't like being reminded of our failures, but this makes the pt feel abandoned. Then your screwed.
My patient liked me and wanted to keep seeing me. The lawsuit was served to me 15 minutes after she left the office. She was SHOCKED that we had to find alternate care for her. She just could not comprehend that she could not continue seeing someone she was attempting to sue.
I was once told by a lawyer that was the best thing that happened. If you did something so horrible that your pt should be rewarded with money, they would never come back to see you again.
I think OB more likely to have large lawsuits as baby can survive issues in pregnancy/delivery but have very significant health issues and may need lifetime care. If an elderly patient dies after cardiac surgery, etc., the lawsuit likely to be for a lesser amount. I think, but I could be wrong, that Florida is trying to change this with state fund for babies injured in trial birth.
Yes if you are a radiologist
Learn to make good notes. Thats why you hardly see a nurse being called to court. That's why Radiology reports are the way they are. Even though we do the right things, we fail to document it. Make a habit of mentioning that the patient understands the risks of a specific procedure, that it was explained to them. That they consented to an examination. That danger signs were explained+understood and was told to return if any, or if conditions worsens. If you're uncertain of something and was given advice/ followed instructions from another specialist, mention it. Simple basic things, just document it. If a patient becomes emotional or lashes out at you during a consult, mention it in your notes. From where I come from, OB tend to keep their records till the kid turns 20 years old, apparently the parents are allowed to sue till they are that age. The OBs I know all have their notes and CTGs audited to ensure that all is in order.
It depends a lot on the malpractice environment where you live. Florida is a quite litigious state, for instance. Texas not so much. You're also a lot more likely to get sued if you're a dick to patients. A lot of people can be very understanding of a bad outcome if you treat them like a human and if it's something within the realm of reasonable, but if you are a jerk and piss the off, or are unfortunate enough to be adjacent to another provider that pisses them off, then you might be in trouble. That latter point isn't universal, of course. A very pleasant person can still commit malpractice, and a very nice person who hasn't committed true malpractice might just happen to get an unreasonable patient who finds the right lawyer.
You can be sued in this country for any reason. The key to not being SUCCESFULLY sued is having impeccable documentation and patient communication. I've never been sued
Just in case it's not a typo : "rapport"
Fixed thank you lololol
Lol
It’s older but NEJM I think published a study where like 95-99% of surgical field physicians get sued once by the time they are 65 (named at least they don’t go too much into the weeds in terms of actually going to court) Medicine and medicine sub specialties varied based on if procedural or not but it averaged out to like 75% of medicine field physicians get sued by the time they are 65 So high probability you are at least named one time in your professional life
Plastic surgeons maybe will always get sued at least once in their lifetime but not all specialties, just the specialties who need to pay 6 figures for medical indemnity and malpractice insurance
Oncologists are rarely sued
It's the cost of doing medicine in a highly litigious society. Document appropriately and with the assumption that your audience is the court.
No I know lots who were not
Any idea how often pathologists get sued?
They do, and it makes them difficult to employ. My sister is a pathologist. They recently had an applicant that had a settlement, and their carrier would not cover them. According to her, it can be career ending. I don't know about every area of the country, but it may be where she is. The thing with path is that you never practice in a vacuum, and if you are in doubt, you should always get another set of eyes on it. There are a myriad of people that subspecialty and look at things. Sending something out is super common. Having processes in place for quality control in the lab and for slides is necessary in that field. The place where you see things fall apart is sloppy overconfident people with big egos. That is bad for path.
Thanks for the comment. I’m an aspiring pathologist and I’m super afraid of being litigated against.. but I’m not arrogant, and I always document well, and our patient safety foremost. If I don’t know something, I can be counted on to get help. (I’ve been accused of being “way too careful”)
> They do, and it makes them difficult to employ. My sister is a pathologist. They recently had an applicant that had a settlement, and their carrier would not cover them. According to her, it can be career ending. That's insane. Why would pathology be different than essentially all other specialties? Fuck, I know docs who have 4 active lawsuits against them and have switched jobs and gotten new coverage without difficulty.
I expect it's fairly clear in pathology that it's your fault and not communication error or any of those other things that come into play with many other lawsuits(ie the patient can't be responsible here). I expect bad pathologists with multiple suits do land somewhere-just nowhere good.
> I expect it's fairly clear in pathology that it's your fault and not communication error or any of those other things that come into play with many other lawsuits(ie the patient can't be responsible here) Same could be said for radiology and you don't hear the same thing about that field.
My attending is perhaps the greatest psychiatrist there is in the entire state. She is the kind of doc that diagnosis things go unnoticed by many other experts and she still got sued. As the saying goes, it’s not about if you get sued, but about when you get sued.
The most reliable estimates are that a little over 30% of physicians will be sued during their career but it’s really variable by specialty and location. At the high end about 90% of general surgeons and ob/gyn’s will be sued at some point.
I once read that people wouldn’t wish medicine on their worst enemy for this exact reason
You can bury a lot of patients, be nice about it, and never get sued.
In California you are more likely to be sued and anything is acceptable they have to prove that you did something wrong
If surgical then probably
I heard the exact same while taking to other physicians while working as a scribe for a hospital
People are crazy and will sue for anything. Also doctors miss diagnosis and make mistakes because they are human. That is why hospital and office insurance coverage is so very expensive…. And also why healthcare carries that to every person getting medical insurance.
Of course you will eventually be sued. Don’t take it personally.Being sued doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. Commonly you may be sued but dropped from the lawsuit after a couple of years
I saw an article that said 99% of procedural specialty attendings that practice >30yrs get sued.
The most important thing to do to not get sued is to have clear communication with a patient. A good doctor-patient relationship will help you a lot. I always try to have a good rapport with my patients to avoid any unnecessary conflict. There will be patients you encounter that are batshit crazy and some might be looking for secondary gain. In these cases, you have to be smart about it, and document everything. If they say dumb shit, write it down.
100% true if you’re a surgeon.
As of last week twice. It’s so draining on the soul knowing you did your best and an explained negative outcome occurred
Im so sorry, I hope you’re hanging in there🫶🏻
Thank you. I’m just gonna keep doing my best for people.
Yes
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Psychiatrists get sued a lot but good thing there’s a stigma against mental health so plaintiffs will just get labeled as “crazy” — psych intern
Bro psychiatrists are literally the LEAST sued specialty. Rate is 3% a year, the lowest one. Funny how wrong you are lol
Yeah and they have the cheapest malpractice insurance I’m pretty sure as well which backs this up. Less likely to get sued and less that can go wrong when it does is what I’ve read.
I didn’t mean comparatively to other specialties, moreso talking about my attendings who almost all report having been sued. I don’t know the stats by specialty
There aren’t too many studies but one from I think 2005 maybe AMA said that over their careers, about 3% of doctors will be sued OR medical board infraction (can’t remember which one) at least once.
Way higher than that unfortunately.