“There’s got to be a better way”: Global Perspectives of Medicolegal Environment and Neurosurgical Socioeconomics

Abstract

Neurosurgery is considered to have one of the greatest risks of medical malpractice claims. However, medicolegal issues in neurosurgery are often disregarded and underrated worldwide. Medical errors in the neurosurgical field can be attributed to multiple factors, including highly morbid pathologies, the technical difficulty of neurosurgical procedures, and the involvement and interaction of a multidisciplinary team in the care of neurosurgical patients. Health care providers worldwide are at risk of lawsuits, sometimes even when no deviation from the standard of care had occurred in a given case. Often, governments use additional tactics to decrease the burden on compensators and extrajudicial institutions and to decrease the court's flow of irrational litigation. Continuous amendments to health care acts and newer reforms to address these issues have materialized worldwide. In the present narrative review, we have reviewed the global perspectives of medicolegal issues, with a focus on neurosurgical discipline.