Low blows in the malpractice debate

First, a Texas database accessible to doctors online effectively blacklisted past Lone Star State malpractice plaintiffs, their lawyers, and their expert witnesses within the medical community. The site was all but shut down in early 2004 after a barrage of criticism…

Next, near-simultaneous instances of doctors refusing treatment to malpractice lawyers, sympathetic lawmakers, or their family members sprung up in South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Mississippi…

And back in June, one brazen M.D. submitted a formal proposal to the American Medical Association suggesting that physicians should be officially allowed to WITHHOLD CARE from attorneys involved on the plaintiff side of medical malpractice cases. That motion was voted down, but the handwriting on the wall is clear: Doctors are getting sick and tired of being taken to the cleaners for malpractice insurance so that vulture-like litigators and their willing co-conspirators in the hallowed halls of government can get rich.

Here's the problem, in a nutshell: Doctors blame lawyers for inflating their malpractice insurance rates by winning stratospheric malpractice awards (a not altogether inaccurate conclusion, by the way). Lawyers throw up their hands and point back to the insurance companies. In truth, it's a lax judiciary that's to blame. They're the ones awarding these outlandish settlements. One can't really blame lawyers for seeking them if judges keep dealing them out, right? Refusing to treat them isn't the answer, especially for those of us who've ACTUALLY TAKEN the Hippocratic Oath - and take it seriously.

Regardless of who's to blame for outrageous malpractice insurance rates, though, patients and taxpayers are the ones who ultimately pay the price.

But this blame game between doctors and lawyers isn't the real issue. It's a symptom of a bigger problem: The out-of-control cost of medical treatment, which opens the door to ever-more-invasive government control over medicine. How? Because if the government ends up having to step in to pay the tab for more and more folks who can't afford medical treatment, the architects of the Medicare and Medicaid systems that process these claims will end up having a much greater influence on how medicine is practiced in this country. And that's no doubt what they're after - control over what medicine you can and can't get. Who benefits from the "governmentalizing" of medicine?

Drug companies and tax collectors, of course. Once Big Brother has the power to dictate what constitutes proper medical treatment (i.e. DRUGS), doctors will become nothing more than prescription-writers working from a drug-sponsored government handbook for your health. And won't the money roll in - from corporate taxes on pharmaceuticals makers and sales tax on the drugs themselves. It'll be glorious - for them, not you.

Oh, and speaking of both malpractice and prescription-writing…

It's a running joke in the medical community that doctors have notoriously atrocious handwriting - especially when it comes to writing prescriptions. I mean, who among us hasn't looked at a "scrip slip" we've just been handed and wondered, "What the heck does that SAY?" Imagine how nerve-wracking the problem must be for pharmacists.

But what's no laughing matter is the very real possibility for potentially deadly mistakes. With all the drugs out there today (and more on the way in waves), it'd be easy enough for a pharmacist to get confused even in the best of circumstances. But when they're handed a prescription slip that forces them to guess between Zoloft, Zyban or Zovirax, imagine the chaos that could ensue.

Finally, someone's trying to do something about it. After a pharmacist mistakenly gave him a prescription for Prednisone (a steroid) instead of the cholesterol drug Pravachol his doctor recommended (probably needlessly), one Michigan state senator proposed legislation that would levy stiff fines against docs who don't take the most basic care in writing prescriptions legibly. In my opinion, simple fines aren't enough - I think official sanction and a malpractice suit would be more appropriate. But hey, something's better than nothing, right?

With any luck, this measure will pass, paving the way for similar legislation elsewhere. It's really amazing to me, though, that we need LAWS (clearly we do) to make doctors take even the most basic precautions against the kind of disastrous medical errors that when taken altogether add up to the THIRD LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH in this country.

What's even scarier is this: If a lot of docs today aren't even careful with their penmanship, how carefully are they diagnosing and treating YOU?

Always careful with my written "prescriptions" for your health,

William Campbell Douglass II, MD