The medical liability litigation industry and how to defeat it - A challenge for management science

Smith Howard N

doi:10.17352/2455-3068.000131

Abstract

Suspicion of fault is toxic to a trusting relationship between physicians and patients. It is even more toxic to the interest of justice. A medical liability litigation industry rises from this suspicion of fault and prospers at the expense of physicians, patients and justice. Lawyers are part of the medical liability litigation industry; so, too, are expert witnesses, who are also physicians. Byrom vs. Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center is illustrative of the impact of suspicion of fault. Inductive reasoning is the conventional way lawsuits are argued. It is the critical success factor used by lawyers and expert witnesses on both sides to showcase their most favorable evidence. However, deductive reasoning is also an acceptable form of legal reasoning. It is completely consistent with the ethical requirement of doctors acting in the capacity of medical experts to remain objective. It analyzes all evidence, favorable or not. Although organized medicine has authority over doctors who are expert witnesses, until now, it does nothing to hold expert witnesses accountable to ethical obligations. The consequences are verdicts like that of Byrom vs Johns Hopkins. Healthcare management science offers a solution to this dilemma. A methodology of deductive reasoning, which is used as a best practice for medical experts, is a means to hold experts accountable to the highest principles of jurisprudence and professional ethics and separates experts from the interests of the medical liability litigation industry.

Highlights

Attorneys need medical experts to review the claim and prepare a report or affidavit of merit, which serves as the Citation: Smith HN (2021) The medical liability litigation industry and how to defeat it - A challenge for management science
Eleven words appear in medical records and even in the pleadings [15] “Ms Byron had recently arrived in the United States from Liberia.”
Risk (μ) =15.2% 2.Relative Risk for the Standard of Care (RRsc) = μ/μ =1.0 (B) Adverse Outcome caused by Treatment in Question - Compare all 10 phase in treatment in question to corresponding phases in standard of care to compute: 1. Risk of Harm (ROH) - see figure 4 — nine phases =0, one phase =0.538 2

Summary

Suspicion of fault and the medical liablity litigation industry

Medical interventions are not without adverse outcomes. Some may be random; some are medical errors. Commerce from the suspicion of fault is at the expense of the patient/doctor relationship. It increases the costs of defensive medicine and liability insurance [9]. The burden of proof is only 50.01% probability It could be 95% probability depending on how the threshold for quantum is set. Two weeks later, when 25 weeks, she is admitted to Bayview Hospital for severe pre-eclampsia. The mother recovers from pre-eclampsia and the very low birth-weight premature infant survives. Later, it is diagnosed with brain damage, microcephaly and cerebral palsy

Inductive reasoning

Lessons learned from Byrom Vs Bayview medical center

Deductive reasoning

Findings

Background