quote:
As a person that has worked in the medical field for 14 years, and will be practicing as an NP in less than 2 months, I think most lawyers need to hang it up. Patients often ask "why" something is being done or ordered, and I've said "Morris Bart runs this ER". Most of what I do now and for the rest of my career is being dictated by the potential for being sued. So I have to treat patients based on that instead of treating them based on my education and training. It disgusts me

I hope you never take care of myself or a loved one of mine with that type of attitude.

There are approximately 850,000 physicians in the United States. Last year, there were 9,205 payments made in medical malpractice cases across the United States. Although it's factually incorrect, we'll assume that those are all individual doctors that got sued - 9,205 different people. We know this isn't the case because sometimes medical malpractice cases are against nurses, sometimes they're against hospitals, etc. But to help your misplaced feelings, lets assume that the 9,205 number represents 9,205 individual doctors. That means that 1.08% of the profession had a malpractice claim paid on their behalf last year. That means that 840,000+, or 99%, doctors did not.

In Louisiana last year, there were 253 claims paid. That means Louisiana doctors/hospitals/nurses were responsible for about 2.7% of the malpractice claims paid. There are 4.6 million folks in Louisiana. Who knows how many total interactions with doctors or physicians, but when you account for folks that never go to the hospital and people that go once a week, you're probably looking at around 10 million+ interactions between citizens and the medical field. And only 253 claims paid.

And you think lawyers and med mal claims are rampant, why again? Who feeds that line? Oh, the insurance industry? Great move listening to those folks as they're clearly uninterested parties. Oh wait...

The vast majority of doctors are good folks who do a good job and never get sued. But they're not perfect and some of them aren't even good folks. Those people don't deserve any more protection than lawyers do in malpractice cases, or architects in malpractice cases, or insurance agents in errors and omissions cases, or anyone else that is open to suit due to the services they provide.