Philadelphia Personal Injury Attorney Blog | Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis LLP

In a speech before the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' (ACOG) 56th annual clinical meeting, Richard Boothman, JD, the chief risk officer for the University Of Michigan Health Systems said that lawyers were not to blame for the current crisis in medical malpractice liability. Instead, he said, doctors were themselves largely to blame for giving patients no recourse but to turn to a lawyer.

OB/GYN's are particularly sensitive to the crisis because they have the highest medical malpractice premiums of any specialty, since they are exposed to suits resulting from jeopardizing the mother's health and birth injuries to the baby as well. He said, "Study after study suggests that patients sue primarily because they feel they haven't gotten answers. They feel that no one is accountable when an error has caused injury. They also feel a huge sense of responsibility to protect others, to make sure what happened to them won't happen to other patients." Finally, a hospital that understands medical malpractice lawsuits are driven not by money, but by a desire for justice and by a desire to bring some good from a bad situation.

To respond to the real rationale underlying patients' lawsuits, the University of Michigan Health Systems instituted a process of full disclosure with respect to medical errors, and found that, since the procedure was instituted in 2001, the number of cases pending against the system were reduced by 2/3, costs were reduced by half, and processing times were reduced by half. This shows that it is not lawyers who are to blame for the current crisis in medical malpractice, but doctors, who are often too arrogant to admit a mistake, explain, and issue an apology.

Unfortunately, until more hospitals institute this kind of procedure, the courts remain your only avenue for getting the answers you need from a doctor. If you have been hurt by a medical error, please contact the experienced medical malpractice lawyers at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation and case evaluation.