I am an IMG who started my EM residency last month at North Dakota.....basically i know nothing about the legal issues and suing that happens when I do a mistake and the patient sues me, especially in EM where youve got to make decisions real fast that you have higher chance of error...
I entered EM in hope that I can switch into GS program later, but last month my mind completely changed when I met my PD and attendings here, they convinced me that EM is truly a place for minds like me....however, if there are a lot of legal problems in EM i might change my mind back to GS or even IM
If you don't want to worry about being sued, you shouldn't be
any kind of doctor in America. There are multiple threads on this, showing charts and graphs as to which specialties get sued the most. Even the majority of MDs in "low risk" specialties will eventually be sued at some point. In high risk specialties, it approaches 100% over a career. EM is not the most sued specialty, but it's not the least. GS gets sued plenty. IM too. Even peds, which has one of the lowest frequencies of being sued has one of the highest awards payed out to the plaintiffs when they do lose.
Know that getting sued has very little to do with "making a mistake" or your competence. You will make plenty of mistakes in your career, since you are human. Very few, if any will lead to you being sued. Most often, you will be sued simply because a patient had a bad outcome. Most likely you'll think, "Of all cases, why am I getting sued over this? I didn't even do anything wrong on this one". You'll think back to cases where you would have done something different yet a lawsuit never came. It makes no sense until you realize you are ensnared in a web web cast by a lawyer to score maximum dollars. You'll be dragged through the mud, told you were incompetent and killed or maimed a patient on purpose, when you absolutely did not.
That is our normal. Don't take it personally (I know that's impossible).
Unfortunately it's part of the job. It will be hard, it will affect you, but you will survive and learn from it. Mostly what you will learn is that our legal system is imperfect and has more to do with money than "justice" or "malpractice". In a case I was sued over, they even sued several pathologists that never saw the patient, but simply were on duty the day a certain lab test was run.
(My description here, with flame war with med-mal attorneys in comments after the article:
http://drwhitecoat.com/2013/02/it-didnt-feel-like-a-win/)
Expect to get sued. Have insurance, and when it happens, let your lawyer worry about it.
Also, never vote for a politician who favors trial lawyers and isn't strongly in favor of tort reform.
I could list many pro's and con's of EM, but I wouldn't make the decision based on a fear of lawsuits. If you make your focus to be a doctor and help people, you'll be fulfilled. You're one of the "good guys". Focus on the fact that the vast majority don't sue you. In my career so far, 99.9966666666667% of my patients have
not sued me (that's a real estimate: 29,999 out of 30,000, and counting, at least).
It does hurt when it happens though, if you are human.
I guess I was too nervous about it because I heard of a resident in another place who was sued for almost nothing
