INTRODUCTION The analysis of malpractice complaints can provide valuable information on patient safety. This study offers a detailed examination of the backgrounds concerning reasons and outcomes of ear, nose and throat (ENT) malpractice complaints handled by the National Board of Patients' Complaints (NBPC), 1998-2008. MATERIAL AND METHODS All NBPC decisions related to the ENT specialty from...

CONTEXT Proponents of restrictions on malpractice lawsuits claim that tort reform will improve access to medical care. OBJECTIVE To estimate the effects of changes in state malpractice law on the supply of physicians. DESIGN Differences-in-differences regression analysis that matched data on the number of physicians in each state between 1985 and 2001 from the American Medical Association's...

During the past three decades, medical malpractice insurance has experienced periodic crises of lack of available coverage and/or increased price of coverage.1 One solution in some states has been the implementation of public medical malpractice insurance plans, the most common type being Patient Compensation Funds (PCFs).2 By definition, PCFs offer insurance for medical malpractice liability t...

introduction: esthetic surgeries are among the commonest medical procedures in the world nowadays; and as statistics declare, there has been a rapid increase in the rate of rhinoplasty during the recent years. hence, as the number of cosmetic surgeries rises, the increment in the number of physicians being sued is quite inevitable; either due to complication in rhinoplasties or even inability t...

Scholars have argued that the malpractice system would be better off if patients had the option of waiving the right to sue for malpractice in exchange for a lower fee. Some doctors have tried to follow this advice by having their patients sign medical malpractice exculpatory agreements, but courts usually have refused to enforce these agreements, invoking a void-for-public-policy rationale. Th...

BACKGROUND Emergency medicine is a high-risk specialty that carries a constant risk of malpractice litigation. Fear of malpractice litigation can lead to less-than-optimal patient care as well as impairments in physician quality of life. Although malpractice fear can be ubiquitous among emergency physicians, most receive little to no education on malpractice. DISCUSSION Medical malpractice re...

IN medical malpractice litigation, negligence is the predominant theory of liability. The basic elements of a malpractice claim are duty, negligence, causation, and damage. Duty refers to the practitioners responsibility to treat a patient according to the standard of care. Negligence is defined by law as a deviation from the accepted standard of care and, therefore, a breach of duty. Causation...

Malpractice reforms tend to reduce physician liability for harming patients. Because these reforms are passed at the state level, the costs of harming patients vary widely by geographic location. In this paper, I test whether malpractice reforms affect where physicians choose to practice and whether physicians who relocate in response to reforms are particularly prone to commit malpractice. Bec...