Here's a fascinating article about the many factors Lawyers consider when deciding whether to sue for medical negligence or not.
Here's the most fascinating bit and it is why I am writing my book (it's not really about agile, like I thought, it's about relationships) - patients rarely sue doctors they like:
Why some doctors are more likely to get sued
Q Every doctor makes an occasional mistake. But most of those mistakes don't turn into malpractice suits. Why do some doctors get sued more than others?
Burkin: I'd say the most important factor in many of our cases—besides the negligence itself—is the quality of the doctor-patient relationship. People just don't sue doctors they like. In all the years I've been in this business, I've never had a potential client walk in and say, "I really like this doctor, and I feel terrible about doing it, but I want to sue him." We've had people come in saying they want to sue some specialist, and we'll say, "We don't think that doctor was negligent. We think it's your primary care doctor who was at fault." And the client will say, "I don't care what she did. I love her, and I'm not suing her."
We had one client who desperately wanted to sue her internist. She'd been going to this doctor for five years, and she'd had mammograms every year. One time there was some question on the mammogram, so the internist referred the patient to a surgeon who evaluated her and ordered a follow-up mammogram. The radiologist read that one as "negative," but our experts said it actually showed a suspicious lesion requiring further follow-up. As a result, the cancer wasn't caught until a year later, by which time it had metastasized.
Now even though the radiologist was clearly at fault, the patient blamed her internist for the delayed diagnosis. In our first meeting, she told me she hated this doctor because she never took the time to talk to her, and never asked about her other symptoms. "She never looked at me as a whole person," the patient told us.
Allen: We were involved in another case in which the client insisted on suing her newborn's pediatrician when the baby ended up with severe brain damage due to a herpes infection. The pediatrician had come to the hospital for a well-baby checkup after the delivery. Apparently, he didn't notice a herpes sore on the mother's lip—a sign that the baby might be at risk for herpes. But since he'd only seen the mother for about 20 minutes on that one visit, we didn't think he should be a defendant.
The obvious defendant was the woman's ob/gyn, who had seen her several times throughout her pregnancy, not to mention during the delivery. If he had noticed the herpes sore, he should have checked the mother for genital herpes. Had he done so, he would have known to do a cesarean to prevent the baby from picking up the infection. The client refused to sue him, however, because she'd had a long and close relationship with him and really liked him. But she had no relationship with the pediatrician, so she decided to sue him.
[via Malcolm Gladwell's Blink - you can read the relevant section by searching inside the book on Amazon.com for the term "listening to doctors 39" which will take you to page 39. At the bottom of page 39 you'll find the start of section "5. Listening to doctors"].
Well worth the 5 minutes it will take to read - especially if you are a "techie" who doesn't understand why the rest of the world doesn't embrace (say) Agile or TDD.
