You will all be sued at least once in your career. I believe the average for EM physicians is one suit every 5 years or 10,000 patients. I've been a doctor almost 20 years now. I've been sued twice, which over a 20 year stretch is actually below the average. In both instances, I was falsely accused. The first one left me incredibly despondent for one week, then I got angry about the false accusation, and it ate at me for a couple of years, until over. It went down similar to
this which I posted first on an SDN thread, then on KevinMD.
The second one, also a false accusation in which I followed the standard of care, didn't hit me as hard because I had already been through the process once. I was advised by my lawyers that even though I followed the standard of care, shouldn't have even been named and had multiple experts lined up to testify to that fact, to settle for a smallish amount of money to get me out of the case. They informed me that everyone else was settling and getting out of the case. They advised me, that if I didn't also, and we took the case to trial and unexpectedly lost, that I risked getting dinged for the whole award. If you go to trial and win, all is well, other than the fact that you had to spend a miserable awful week in court being on trial for something where you did nothing wrong. If you go to trial and the jury unexpectedly rules for the plaintiff, while everyone else settled, you're on the hook for the whole amount even if you were only assigned 1% fault (joint & severable liability). They also advised me that they hate having one of their defendants left fighting the case, even if 100% innocent, while others have settled. This can result in something they call "empty chair" where witnesses start pointing fingers and blaming the providers that are out of the case (since the testimony can't hurt them anymore) like decoys. Although it doesn't hurt the already settled ex-defendants, since they're out of the case, it ends up sabotaging the remaining defendants (even if innocent), since the jury ends up being persuaded somebody must have done something was wrong (since providers are pointing fingers) and those remaining get stuck responsible for the whole award, even if innocent or with only a tiny fraction of responsibility.
Bottom line on the second case was: You followed standard of care. You did everything right. We don't think you should even have been named. But we'd rather throw a trivial amount of money at them to get you out of this case, to prevent the outside chance this blows up in your face, if those with the real risk, settle. Then if you gamble and get caught as the only defendant left, the jury feels bad for the plaintiff and feels they have to blame someone with a big insurance policy, then it hits the newspapers the next day, that the big award, that you had nothing to do with, was rendered against you and only you. Then you have this big judgement on your record when you did nothing wrong. So, I decided to have my lawyers and med/mal insurance company pay a trivial amount to settle me out of a case in which I did nothing wrong, to make the whole thing go away, and to save me from having to spend a week in court being cross examined and on trial. This is actually what they recommended and were also happy with. Since I know essentially all doctors are sued eventually, and that having at least one settlement or even award on the NPDB is the norm, I chose to take this option. It's not only a matter of, "Did you follow the standard of care or not?" There's actually a fair amount of strategy involved. Lawyers don't sue you because you did something wrong. They sue you because there was a bad outcome, you have an insurance policy which to them is a pinata filled with $1million/$3million dollars, and they think they can persuade a jury or your insurance company to let them take a swing at it.
If you remember one thing from this post of mine, when you get sued, remember that it's not about you or your worth as a doctor or a person. It's entirely about lawyers fighting over an insurance company's money. It's NOT about you. It's about money. Remember that.
To bring it back circle to the fact that you will get sued at least once, all of you. The reason I know you'll be sued, is not because I know you'll make a mistake at some point. That's not the reason. The reason is be you have an insurance policy with a million dollar pot of gold in it. The lawyers see you not as a physician. When they see you walking around, the see you like a character in a video game. As you walk by in your scrubs, they see a shiny "$1million/$3 million" floating above your head, the neurosurgeon with a "$3million/$5million" floating over his head and they're the player trying to get the "ding! ding! ding! ding! ding!" payout. To them, you're the pinata, they're the player, and the "case" is just the stick.
