On Thursday 07 December 2006 20:07, Cedric Meyerowitz wrote: > But the lawyers & judges wouldn't be doing these illogical actions if the > patient who was given the referral in their hand, didn't decide to sue the > Doctor. So we must firstly blame the patient.
If the patients wouldn't have been led to believe that this whole litigation system is nothing but a goddam lottery where you can win far more than you could ever earn in your life by continuing to work hard, and where there is so little to loose (from the patients point of view ...) it would never have come that far. Of course, our own profession is partially to blame too. Inaction, arrogance, paternalistic behaviour, denial when something wrong was done, cover -up-and-kill-the-whistle-blower mentality etc. I (as probably all of my colleagues) have witnessed patients coming to harm through negligence and never contemplating legal action. I have witnessed even more patients coming to harm through negligence and not even being aware of it. But I have also witnessed a share of patients who openly admitted to me that they sued a colleague (successfully) because some solicitor told them over a glass of beer what could be in for them, and that it is only the insurance who will pay and not the doctor, etc - admitting that they were convinced the doctor had not done anything wrong. The whole system is so rotten that I should have been able to smell the stench from Europe before coming here. But then, 9 years ago, it was nowhere near as bad as it had become 5 years ago - the wild, wild west of litigation lottery. Never try to tell me that it was not the legal system's fault! If a judge says that a patient who refuses to follow a doctors advice (and this is well documented) and comes to harm as a consequence (eg by not attending appointments) deserves any compensation from that doctor at all - in my opinion such judge should be strapped to a rack, subjected to 30 lashes, and then put onto janitor duties or similar kind of work where he cannot do harm to society any more. The following statements are presuming patients of sound mind and age: Recall systems should be *optional*. A distinguishing service provided by health professionals, at their discretion at additional cost or as professional courtesy - and not a "right" somebody can sue for. Referrals should be *professional advice*, which the patient can either take or ignore - but the patient and nobody but the patient should be liable for the outcome of ignoring the advice (if a patient actually follows my advice and comes to harm because of this, then of course it is *my* responsibility and I should be liable for the outcome - but not acting as a nanny and not enforcing compliance with my advice should NEVER lead to any repercussions against me) Horst _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
