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In a medical malpractice trial in Pittsburgh, the jury found that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center at Shadyside’s care of the Plaintiff was both medical negligence and that it was the cause of the death of a man. The jury awarded $2.5 million under the Pennsylvania Wrongful Death Act. They gave no damages under the Pennsylvania Survival Act.

Incredibly, the jury issued a statement as to why: “After eight days of testimony in the case of Rettger v. UPMC Shadyside, it is the unanimous opinion of the jury that no amount of damages will adequately punish UPMC. It is our belief that UPMC Shadyside’s policies, culture, and lack of competent supervision resulted in the death [of the decedent].”

The plaintiffs now seek a new trial because they had evidence to show that the decedent’s lost earning capacity was between $4 million and $15 million.

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Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi introduced a bill designed to encourage doctors and other medical professionals to volunteer their services to patients who cannot afford or access care. The law would provide grants that states would use in part to assume medical malpractice risk for doctors and ensure patients can recover damages from medical malpractice.

I have not thought through all the ramifications of such a bill, but it sure seems to make a lot of sense. What we also need to look at more creatively as a society is trying to get more doctors into rural areas. There have always been reports of doctor shortages in the more rural parts of Maryland.

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The Baltimore Sun ran a story on Tuesday about the shortage of doctors in Maryland’s rural areas.

The problem rural areas have is that doctors cannot earn what they can in more urban areas. Historically, MedChi, the Maryland state medical society, has tried to wrap all of these problems up and place them at the feet of Maryland medical malpractice lawyers, which causes their malpractice insurance rates to be too high.

This was always beyond silly because rural areas have so few successful medical malpractice claims in Maryland and malpractice rates reflect this. Thankfully, this Baltimore Sun article is void of any claims that the root of the problem is medical malpractice lawyers. I’m not sure if the MedChi has just dropped pushing that angle or whether the Baltimore Sun just tuned them out when they tried to blame malpractice lawyers. Either way, it is a welcome development. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-md.rural28jul28,0,7434366.story

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Many doctors in South Florida are reportedly flying with a net: 21% of medical doctors do not have medical malpractice insurance.

I have never seen data in Maryland, but I suspect the numbers are lower. My solution is simple: require all doctors practicing medicine in Maryland to have medical malpractice insurance. And while we are at it, all medical malpractice lawyers in Maryland should be required to have legal malpractice insurance as well, lest we be accused of being hypocrites.

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Medical Economics has an editorial from a medical malpractice defense lawyer who has defended physicians in malpractice cases for over 32 years. The author expresses the opinion that after having tried over 200 medical malpractice jury trials and won over 90 percent of those cases that if the same cases had been tried before health courts, the number of plaintiff’s medical malpractice verdicts would have been much higher.

The idea behind health courts is that specially trained judges or a panel of medical doctors would hear medical malpractice cases without juries and decide liability and/or damages for the malpractice plaintiff.

This malpractice defense lawyer in this editorial praises the malpractice defense bar in Ohio for aggressively defending “questionable cases” as opposed to settling cases where there is only a small possibility of an adverse outcome and praises doctors for taking “time from their practices to participate in trials.” (Actually, I’m not sure participation was optional but okay.)

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