Abstract 15605: Underrepresentation of Cardiologist Demographics in Review of Medicolegal Cardiology Cases

Abstract

Introduction: Cardiologists face an increased risk of medical professional liability (MPL) claims compared to physicians overall throughout their careers. Simultaneously, male physicians are over twice as likely to encounter medicolegal litigation than female physicians. Understanding the distribution of MPL claims across cardiologist demographics is vital to identify high risk areas and improve quality of patient care. Thus, we aimed to characterize current literature on the inclusion of demographic data in medicolegal cases against cardiologists. Methods: Searches were performed in the PubMed database. An initial search using a combination of the terms “cardiologist,” “cardiology,” “cardiac,” and “malpractice” yielded 802 results. Studies were screened by title and abstract for 1) relevance and 2) acquisition of data from a legal or insurance database. Data was manually extracted from eligible studies and categorized into 18 legal and demographic fields. Results: After applying eligibility criteria, 21 studies were analyzed. Comparison of key variables revealed an underrepresentation of cardiologist demographic data compared to patient data (Table 1). While two-thirds of medicolegal studies in cardiology described patient gender, no studies included gender of the defending cardiologist. Similarly, though two-thirds of studies mentioned patient age, none included cardiologist age. There was no mention of patient or cardiologist race in any of the 21 studies reviewed. Conclusion: In conclusion, knowledge of gender- and race-specific litigation patterns against cardiologists is absent from literature. Despite descriptions of patient characteristics, current studies on the medicolegal landscape of cardiology ignore key cardiologist variables. Incorporating demographics of prosecuted cardiologists could help elucidate the role of gender and race in medicolegal cases, minimize litigation risk, and enhance patient care outcomes.