Patient Safty Education for Physicians - the Importance of Expert Evaluations in Medical Malpractice Litigation.

Incentive effects of medical malpractice. The effects of malpractice litigation on physicians' fees and incomes.

For many years physicians and other medical providers in the United States have been subject to a negligence rule of liability. Under a negligence rule, patients who suffer an adverse outcome are entitled to compensation if they can show that they incurred an injury that was caused by the physician's failure to take due care, defined as departure from the customary standard of care of physician...

Iatrogenesis and Medical Error: The Case for Medical Malpractice Litigation

D iscussions of medical malpractice seem to end up at either of two extremes: the trial lawyer’s view that injured patients deserve compensation, with the treating physician the best source; and the doctor’s view that such suits unfairly penalize judgmental errors while raising the costs of practicing medicine. The parties to this debate make different assumptions about the nature, purpose, and...

An Explosion in Medical Malpractice Litigation

The expert witness in medical malpractice litigation: through the looking glass.

Neurologists have professional, ethical, and social obligations to ensure that expert witness testimony is reliable, objective, and truthful. In the past, an absence of professional regulatory oversight combined with immunity from civil litigation allowed the partisan expert to flourish. This is no longer the case. The expert witness unquestionably faces an increasingly perilous liability clima...

Conditions that influence the impact of malpractice litigation risk on physicians’ behavior regarding patient safety

BACKGROUND Practicing safe behavior regarding patients is an intrinsic part of a physician's ethical and professional standards. Despite this, physicians practice behaviors that run counter to patient safety, including practicing defensive medicine, failing to report incidents, and hesitating to disclose incidents to patients. Physicians' risk of malpractice litigation seems to be a relevant fa...