A Critical Analysis: Fairness of Suing Physicians for Malpractice

This essay critically examines the fairness of lawsuits filed against physicians, exploring the complexities of medical malpractice within various healthcare settings. It highlights the potential for corruption and financial incentives influencing medical decisions, leading to patient safety concerns. The essay discusses the ethical considerations of suing physicians, the impact of malpractice litigation on physicians' professional and personal lives, and the significance of patient-physician relationships. It references studies that assess the impact of malpractice litigation, emphasizing factors that contribute to lawsuits, such as communication gaps, disrespect, and the provision of inaccurate information. While acknowledging the need for accountability, the essay also raises questions about the sensitivity of medical information and the potential for bias in determining the fairness of lawsuits. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of continuous auditing and monitoring to prevent malpractice and improve the quality of medical care. The essay references studies by Beckman, Charles, Hyeon, and Marshall to support the arguments.

Running head: PHYSICIANS BEING SUED FAIRLY
PHYSICIANS BEING SUED FAIRLY
Name of Student
Name of University
Author note

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Physicians, who cardinally play a very important role in treating the patients in a
community, society or hospital framework – these physicians have shown signs and even
cases of corruption across various regions of various countries. While some physicians are
practitioners of general medicine and they tend to receive more cases to treat than the
specialist practitioners in some parts of the country while in a community scenario, where a
population is suffering, may be from a same kind of disease – a specialist practitioner
receives a better lineup of business and earning. But overall, studying the social dynamics
closely – one can almost highlight the fact that malpractice amongst the physicians(general
and the specialist). While malpractice can encompass various terms such as medical
malpractice, improper advising and holding up the treatment till further sessions,
prescribing costly medicines and advising unnecessary investigations, medication
prescription errors (Hyeon et al.), trying to treat a disease that a physician is not specialist at.
And all these incidents arise due to a financial urge that can lead to disruption of patient
safety and can even cost a patient, his or her life.
While suing for malpractice is precisely a fair decision that is being made by the
organizations nowadays, across the globe – the continuous auditing and monitoring of
internal affairs of an organization or by the government in a community care or social
servicing clinic scenario, should be encouraged nonetheless as this measure to prevent
malpractice can surely prove beneficial to the quality of medical care and patient centered
care. A study assessed malpractice litigation impact on professional and personal lives of
physicians using a survey. About nearly 56.1% of physicians, according to this study
(Charles et al.), acknowledged that they were being sued for medical malpractice and
because they have committed it knowingly, they developed emotional reactions later on. As a
matter of fact though, a lot of suing by the organization stays in the fine line between fairness
and non-fairness. Similar claims existed in radiation oncology as well (Marshall et al.). This

2PHYSICIANS BEING SUED FAIRLY
is because most of the patients are in center of deciding this suing process and it has been
reported that factors like deserting a patient, de-evaluating the views of patient’s family,
communication gap and disrespecting the family aspects and even providing of a wrong
information to the patient and patient family while daring to misinterpret them as well are the
major issues that lead to suing (Beckman et al.). The opinion almost shifts to a point where
one might think suing is fair but the debate still remains wide open, owing to the fact that
how much sensitive information can always to delivered from a physician side to the patient’s
side so as not to disrupt the treatment environment and is there any parameter to make sure
that a patient’s family would understand the kind of critical medical information provided to
them.
While the majority of the study focusses on suing is fair but it also highlights the areas
where it is difficult to decide whether to sue or not sue a doctor, given the social and ethical
concerns, in order to eliminate any bias.

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References :
Beckman, Howard B., et al. "The doctor-patient relationship and malpractice: lessons from
plaintiff depositions." Archives of internal medicine 154.12 (1994): 1365-1370.
Charles, Sara C., Jeffrey R. Wilbert, and Kevin J. Franke. "Sued and nonsued physicians'
self-reported reactions to malpractice litigation." The American journal of psychiatry (1985).
Hyeon, Cheol Won, et al. "Medical malpractice related to drug-induced anaphylaxis: An
analysis of lawsuit judgments in South Korea." Medicine 98.23 (2019): e15996.
Marshall, Deborah, et al. "Nature of medical malpractice claims against radiation
oncologists." International Journal of Radiation Oncology* Biology* Physics 98.1 (2017):
21-30.