Patients are facing a Medical Malpractice crisis! Part 2

Doctors and their insurance companies have waged a successful campaign over the past 20 years to convince us that all the doctors will flee the state if we don't give them special protection.  The state legislature gave them what they wanted and the people of Florida have been left unprotected.  

In addition to the ways in which Floridians are being left our in the cold, as I discussed in Part 1 of this series, a patient will also have to sign forms at their  doctor's office agreeing not to sue the doctor in court but to submit to a system of arbitration heavily weighed in favor of the doctor including limits on their recovery.  The doctor will not treat them if they do not sign the forms waiving most of their legal rights.

Ironically only 2 or 3% of all acts of medical malpractice are ever reported. Estimates by the Journal of the American Medical Association are that over 225,000 U.S. citizens are killed each year by doctors and hospitals. Some are calling medical mapractice the silent killer in this country.

Hospitals have started to question the morality of failing to notify the patient or the surviving for family when medical malpractice occurs.  Some hospitals have started a proactive program to notify the victims regardless of the legal consequences. 

However few doctors have adopted this moral approach that echoes the ancient medical maxim that every doctor learns in medical school; "the first thing is, do no wrong"!