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Met a PA that is being Sued


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I think the biggest protection to getting sued is being nice.  and practicing at least ok medicine

 

 

You can practice perfect medicine (what ever that is) but if you are a PIA and rude  - you will likely get sued

 

You can be a clueless NICE provider and your panel will be full - especially if you have an MD after your name

 

 

 

my goal is to make it through my career with out being sued -- my newest job is in corrections, so I am not sure that is reasonable as they are suit happy....

 

My understanding is that people sue when things go wrong, regardless of whether or not they like the provider. Sometimes, the person dies and the family (who doesn't know the provider) sues.

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My understanding is that people sue when things go wrong, regardless of whether or not they like the provider. Sometimes, the person dies and the family (who doesn't know the provider) sues.

There's at least some literature disagreeing with that:

 

http://www.injurylawsourcepa.com/2010/06/pittsburgh-medical-malpractice-lawsuit.html

 

But that's just the first hit on a quick Google search, not a detailed pubmed search or anything.  You might want to dig deeper.

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Follow Patrick Swayze's Road House rule #3, "be nice."


Willingness to admit to mistakes or lack of knowledge has been correlated to decreased lawsuits also; these personality and practice traits that foster trust also make you "nice" and less likely to be sued.


"...the dominant theme in these studies' findings was a breakdown in the patient-physician relationship, most often manifested as unsatisfactory patient-physician communication... and as is well documented in the literature, patients are not likely to sue physicians with whom they have developed a trusting and mutually respectful relationship. Simply put, patients do not sue doctors they like and trust. This observation tends to hold true even when patients have experienced considerable injury as a result of a “medical mistake” or misjudgment."


Huntington, B., & Kuhn, N. (2003). Communication gaffes: a root cause of malpractice claims. Proceedings (Baylor University. Medical Center)16(2), 157–161.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1201002/

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The #1 reason providers get sued is......Outcome. Period.

 

Luck and blessing are the only things i lean on.

 

The really crappy thing is I have been told by several Locum companies that they won't take "anyone" on that has a claim regardless of its outcome. They say it drives their premiums up too high. Yea.....

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The #1 reason providers get sued is......Outcome. Period.

 

Luck and blessing are the only things i lean on.

 

The really crappy thing is I have been told by several Locum companies that they won't take "anyone" on that has a claim regardless of its outcome. They say it drives their premiums up too high. Yea.....

 

BUT you have to understand that outcome doesn't equal malpractice or bad medicine.

BAD things do happen - whether surgical or medical.

To put it bluntly - S&IT happens.

 

Getting sued because someone had a known complication to a bad injury that often cannot be prevented doesn't mean anyone did anything wrong. It means the patient isn't HAPPY with the outcome - not that it is bad.

 

THAT is not a good reason to sue. It should not be allowed to be a reason to sue.

 

A 3C open ankle fracture with nerve damage and bone loss WILL lead to a crappy ankle, chronic pain and the prospect of future amputation due to pain and dysfunction. Regardless of who the surgeon is - this is a BAD injury with lifelong implications. The surgeon certainly did not cause the injury and likely did the best work at the time to salvage the limb and surely advised potential amputation (I was part of the NIH study for this as primary treatment).

 

So, many times, outcome doesn't mean bad medicine. It just means the result is not what anyone wanted but did not have a magic wand to fix.

 

One of my favorite ortho residents had his own fracture classification:

 

B = Bad

RB = Real Bad

RFB - Real f'ing bad

 

You really didn't need anything more complicated.

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  • 2 months later...

As an addendum to the discharge instructions, always note that these instructions were given BOTH verbally and in writing (assuming written instructions are provided) and if pt. does so, note their acknowledgement of understanding.  Share the responsibility with them!

 

Heh.

 

Just re-reading this after a new issue came up. I'm a PCP. I typically end my notes with something along the lines of "Patient verbalized understanding and compliance with entire treatment plan".

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Check this out:

 

Internal medicine. Fairly new PA at the time (3 years in and in her 20s) gets sued because she did an ear lavage on a patient with cerumen impaction. Upon removal of the impaction, she discovered that the patient actually had a ruptured TM. Patient is sent emergently to the ENT. The problem is solved with no permanent damage to the patient.

 

Patient sues and it goes on for over a year.

 

This happened at my new practice a few years ago. I don't know more than that.

 

The PA that this happened to still works there and is VERY good. She trained me initially and she loves taking students. Very sweet girl and one of the best PAs I've ever seen.

 

Damn shame. Hope this doesn't end up hurting her career in the long run.

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So the elements of a tort are basically duty of care (check), breach of standard of care (?), harm (?), and causality--that the breach caused the harm. What's the alleged harm and what's the alleged breach of duty?  What, are we only supposed to lavage ears where we can visualize the TM?

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I don't see the cause for suit in the ear case.

The TM was evaluated appropriately and dispensed to advanced care asap without adverse outcome.

 

I am not in ENT specialty but I can't see anyone citing lack of standard of care in this case.

 

My own nightmare is coming back to life SIX YEARS later - see earlier posts in this thread. FINALLY someone started the engine of crap again and the plaintiff's attorney is JUST NOW dealing with anything - SIX YEARS

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So the elements of a tort are basically duty of care (check), breach of standard of care (?), harm (?), and causality--that the breach caused the harm. What's the alleged harm and what's the alleged breach of duty?  What, are we only supposed to lavage ears where we can visualize the TM?

 

 

I don't see the cause for suit in the ear case.

The TM was evaluated appropriately and dispensed to advanced care asap without adverse outcome.

 

I am not in ENT specialty but I can't see anyone citing lack of standard of care in this case.

 

My own nightmare is coming back to life SIX YEARS later - see earlier posts in this thread. FINALLY someone started the engine of crap again and the plaintiff's attorney is JUST NOW dealing with anything - SIX YEARS

 

I have no idea why this happened. Seems bizarre to me as well. I'm wondering if there's more to the story, but I can't imagine what more could have happened. It would be very difficult to accidentally perforate a TM while doing a simple cerumen removal.

 

The interesting thing is that this is an IM office. They were apparently not even being reimbursed for this, but were just doing it as a convenience for the patients. Needless to say, our office no longer does this. But it's a shame that one ruthless patient ruins it for the many good ones.

 

I honestly may never know the outcome. The PAs that have worked there for a while don't even know. Apparently, the PA involved still gets upset when it's brought up (not sure if this is because it's still damaging her career or because it's just a really bad memory of betrayal).

 

I will let you guys know if I ever find out.

 

In any event, RC, is there an update in your situation? Are you being deposed?

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Some sort of stay has expired and now plaintiff attorney is supposed to be finally deposing people.

 

My crew of attorneys thinks that the plaintiff might actual give up right before we are to go to trial because the serious lack of data will finally settle in on him and he will realize that there are no millions to be made. They said this happens a lot.

 

It doesn't make it any less offensive to be named in a suit or read some of the horrid things the schmuck lawyers write in their claims - should be illegal and slander.

 

It will make me nauseous again once some sort of date is set to deal with the plaintiff attorneys - I develop a sort of Tourettes when faced with schmucks and have to monitor my mouth not to spout everything I am thinking.....

 

I cannot wait to be done with this whole mess

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I got tracked down through a process server about 9 months after I graduated and was posted to my new Base...I, along with a list of respondents longer than I am tall at 6'2", were named in a suit from when I was on my orthopedic trauma rotation.  Long story short, person needed a fasciotomy from a compartment syndrome 2ry to poor cast care.  Person left hospital after the fracture was repaired and thrombectomy done...then popped the clot, bled significantly and ended up with an amputation.  Person wasn't exactly looking after themselves well.  Two hospitals and health regions, their CEO's, and everyone on the nursing, medical and surgical staff - if you were in the OR record like me (I wasn't even scrubbed in incidentally), you were named.  It was rather upsetting to say the least.  Because I was a student and in the military at the time, so in performance of a lawful duty, I got a government lawyer for free.  It took 9 months from the time I called the DoJ folks til they called back saying I'd been dismissed as a respondent, simply because the plaintiff''s lawyers were dragging things out with disclosure and petitions and such.  Was a real eye opener...but kind of comes back to a problem of the law upholding the right to sue even if you as a patient are a f&*ktard and don't follow instructions and you get a  bad outcome.  It amazes me that lawyers don't have to pay the same malpractice premiums that we do - I think they'd think twice about doing some this nonsense if they themselves were open to countersuits for frivolous actions OR they just got sued for malpractice by the people on the wrong side of their shyte.

 

SK

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Some sort of stay has expired and now plaintiff attorney is supposed to be finally deposing people.

 

My crew of attorneys thinks that the plaintiff might actual give up right before we are to go to trial because the serious lack of data will finally settle in on him and he will realize that there are no millions to be made. They said this happens a lot.

 

It doesn't make it any less offensive to be named in a suit or read some of the horrid things the schmuck lawyers write in their claims - should be illegal and slander.

 

It will make me nauseous again once some sort of date is set to deal with the plaintiff attorneys - I develop a sort of Tourettes when faced with schmucks and have to monitor my mouth not to spout everything I am thinking.....

 

I cannot wait to be done with this whole mess

 

Talk about wrong place at the wrong time.

 

It sounds like everything will eventually resolve for you since you really weren't even involved in the incident. Sucks that it's been dragging out for so long, but I can't imagine that this would be detrimental when applying for new jobs. I would think that many employers would see this for what it is: a frivolous lawsuit.

 

I got tracked down through a process server about 9 months after I graduated and was posted to my new Base...I, along with a list of respondents longer than I am tall at 6'2", were named in a suit from when I was on my orthopedic trauma rotation.  Long story short, person needed a fasciotomy from a compartment syndrome 2ry to poor cast care.  Person left hospital after the fracture was repaired and thrombectomy done...then popped the clot, bled significantly and ended up with an amputation.  Person wasn't exactly looking after themselves well.  Two hospitals and health regions, their CEO's, and everyone on the nursing, medical and surgical staff - if you were in the OR record like me (I wasn't even scrubbed in incidentally), you were named.  It was rather upsetting to say the least.  Because I was a student and in the military at the time, so in performance of a lawful duty, I got a government lawyer for free.  It took 9 months from the time I called the DoJ folks til they called back saying I'd been dismissed as a respondent, simply because the plaintiff''s lawyers were dragging things out with disclosure and petitions and such.  Was a real eye opener...but kind of comes back to a problem of the law upholding the right to sue even if you as a patient are a f&*ktard and don't follow instructions and you get a  bad outcome.  It amazes me that lawyers don't have to pay the same malpractice premiums that we do - I think they'd think twice about doing some this nonsense if they themselves were open to countersuits for frivolous actions OR they just got sued for malpractice by the people on the wrong side of their shyte.

 

SK

 

Damn, I figured that Canada would have better laws in place for things like this. I've heard that in other countries, lawyers and plaintiffs are held more accountable for their actions. Guess Canada isn't one of these countries.

 

There's always Guam. I hear that you don't even need malpractice there because you can't be sued.

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You're still allowed your day in court here, but alot of suits for malpractice get tossed as soon as a judge reads the complaint...or there's been a coroner's inquest that finds negligence of course.

 

I wouldn't want to sue someone in Guam either - witch doctors put curses on people for less out there I'm told

 

SK

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Some sort of stay has expired and now plaintiff attorney is supposed to be finally deposing people.

 

My crew of attorneys thinks that the plaintiff might actual give up right before we are to go to trial because the serious lack of data will finally settle in on him and he will realize that there are no millions to be made. They said this happens a lot.

 

It doesn't make it any less offensive to be named in a suit or read some of the horrid things the schmuck lawyers write in their claims - should be illegal and slander.

 

It will make me nauseous again once some sort of date is set to deal with the plaintiff attorneys - I develop a sort of Tourettes when faced with schmucks and have to monitor my mouth not to spout everything I am thinking.....

 

I cannot wait to be done with this whole mess

 

I've been doing some research on this type of situation (yours and the PA that I know personally) and found this:

 

http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/medical-economics/news/modernmedicine/modern-medicine-feature-articles/planning-your-next-move-when-?page=full

 

 

 

"We provide examples of cases where sanctions could be imposed," says Tim Maglione, JD, an attorney and OSMA senior director of government relations. "We strongly believe that patients who are injured due to medical negligence must have access to the courts. They should be compensated fairly, but not excessively. But some of these cases were outrageous. The plaintiffs' attorneys didn't do any investigation of the claim, didn't seek an expert opinion, or refused to dismiss physicians who may have had minimal or no contact at all with the patient."

 

The association lists "classic signs" of a frivolous lawsuit on its Web page, www.osma.org. "Unscrupulous trial attorneys often name every physician to a lawsuit whose name appears on the patient's records before conducting even the most basic evaluation of the plaintiff's complaint. This 'shotgun' approach is a legal tactic used by trial attorneys to identify the real target of the lawsuit through a process of elimination. Innocent physicians, however, are forced to shoulder the emotional and financial burden of defending themselves."

The doctor victories:

  • Thoracic surgeon Michael A. Oddi, MD, assisted in a coronary bypass surgery where the patient died from blood loss. The Akron, Ohio, surgeon was in Iraq with the Army Reserve in 2004 while defending the lawsuit filed against him without any expert testimony. An appeals court found the plaintiff's attorney refused to dismiss the unfounded claim, forcing Oddi to incur legal expenses.
  • Bariatric surgeon Mark T. Jaroch, MD, was sued twice without adequate supporting testimony, a court found. The plaintiff's expert withdrew his opinion that the doctor did anything wrong. That didn't stop two attorneys from re-filing the claim against him.
  • Cleveland, Ohio, orthopedic surgeon Michael A. Banks, MD, won $4,500 in attorney's fees for defending a lawsuit filed against him although the patient told her lawyer that he was not the doctor who had mistreated her. The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the award.

 

This sounds very similar to what's going on in your situation. It seems like you don't want to drag this out anymore, but you actually may have a legitimate case against the lawyer in your situation.

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  • 1 month later...

My sanity is at its breaking point.

 

Just got a letter that the incident from 2010 with papers served in 2012 now has a trial date of 2018.

 

Yes that is an EIGHT - as in 18 months from now.

 

I just fired off a livid email to the attorneys threatening to sue for defamation of character and psychological injury.

 

This is ridiculous and should be illegal. Due process and timely adjudication - what a freaking joke.

 

Being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong surgeon is costing me my professional sanity and holding my integrity hostage.

 

Attorneys have now jumped back to the top of the list of those I despise - it was insurance adjustors.

 

This is ridiculous!!!!!

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I just fired off a livid email to the attorneys threatening to sue for defamation of character and psychological injury.

 

Ugh, no, please don't do this. I'm nothing more than an armchair legal enthusiast, and I know that these are incredibly hard to even bring, much less win. You would have to show that you had specific damages, and that they were directly caused by the actions of these people. Lawyers laugh at these kinds of threats, because they know far better than anyone who makes them just how empty they are.

 

I'm truly sorry the bastards are getting you down, but I would recommend not letting them know how much they're getting to you. At least consult with a lawyer of your own, and have them do all the letter-writing and threatening.

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Febrifuge, I appreciate your thoughts.

 

I sent the email to the attorneys defending me and everyone else in this suit.

 

She is used to my distress at this point and will likely send me back an email calming my angst and reassuring me that she is doing everything she can.

 

She is a safe entity to vent at - better than me going to the judge.......

 

The legal system is a joke though

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Much like this forum -- it is nice to have a safe outlet for using one's outside voice and just let it all out while formualting a more refined response and gaining guidance.

 

No value in tantrums but letting out emotions is a very necessary activity.

 

That, and going to the batting cages and smacking baseballs identified as those I would like to whack. Also therapeutic...

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reality check, I truly feel your pain and angst even though I have never been party to a suit in 31 years of family medicine. I wholeheartedly agree with your #1 dislike profession.

Quick story, My family owns a kennel. Lady comes in and gets bitten by a dog after all warnings to keep hands in pocket. She was on coumadin so bled like stuck pig. No real damage or neuropathy. This was 3 years ago. She was stage 4 cancer and is now deceased not due to bite but families attorney is suing for lots of money. They have deposed people who worked at the kennel decades ago. They are now deposing every doctor, nurse, and MA who treated her for cancer at MD Anderson. Trial has been postponed

3 times. Now set for Sept.. They don't call lawyers bottom feeders for nothing. Good luck to you and yes, do everything through an attorney The emotional part will land you in worse trouble.

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They don't call lawyers bottom feeders for nothing.

 

Reminds me of a few jokes...Do you know how to save a drowning lawyer?  If answer is "No", then you answer "Good".

 

What do you call the QEII going down with thousands of lawyers on board?  A good start.

 

What do you throw a drowning lawyer?  An anchor.

 

Lastly - what's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?  One's a scum sucking bottom feeder and the other is a fish.

 

SK

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