Five physicians get real about getting sued for malpractice. They reveal the emotions they felt, the support they received and the impact on their self-esteem. Learn from their lessons should you ever face a jury.
If you've never been sued for malpractice you didn't commit, here's hoping you never face that ordeal. But this is Southern California, so that MD after your name means "here's hoping" has little power against aggressive plaintiff attorneys and frustrated patients fed up with the cost and access problems that plague the healthcare system. The litigation climate here has cooled lately, experts say, and medical liability insurance rates are generally holding steady, but the threat of a lawsuit, especially in the high-risk specialties like obstetrics, is still very real.
So if you get that phone call or that certified letter from a lawyer, here's what you can expect, according to five lawsuit veterans. First, know that you will survive. Even if you don't win the case--and there's a big difference between committing malpractice and being convicted of committing malpractice, especially when a compromised baby or deceased patient is involved--your practice and your mental health will not be damaged permanently. But being sued will be an emotional experience. There will probably be tears.
E. Laurence Spencer-Smith, MD, a Los Angeles-based obstetrician/gynecologist, recalls his reaction upon hearing the "not guilty" verdict when his malpractice experience ended: "A deep breath and a sigh. Ultimate relief. You don't realize how emotionally invested you are until you get that verdict back. It brought tears to my eyes."
Dr. Spencer-Smith had a very different reaction when he got the notice of intent from the plaintiff's attorney. "As an ob/gyn, you're always cognizant of litigation and accusations of medical malpractice. They are always a possibility," he notes. "But I was disappointed, frustrated and, the more I thought about it, angry as I reviewed the case being made against me." It was a case based not on negligence, but on a less-than-perfect result.
He called his insurance carrier, The SCPIE Companies. "They were fantastic and totally supportive," he says. Like many doctors who go through a malpractice suit, Dr. Spencer-Smith raves about the assistance he received from his carrier. "When it comes to legal situations, they'll go to bat for you 100 percent of the time. And whether you choose to go to court or to settle--and even if there happens to be a plaintiff's verdict--they are 100 percent behind you," he says.
In most cases, being sued won't take you down. It didn't faze Dr. Spencer-Smith, who is an attending staff physician at White Memorial Medical Center, an assistant clinical professor at Loma Linda University in the ob/gyn department, and managing partner at White Memorial Gynecologic and Obstetric Medical Group. "I can honestly say the experience never led me to doubt myself or my professional ability," he says, noting that, in 25 years in practice, it was the first malpractice allegation that actually landed in court. He says now, "I feel like it actually made me be a better doctor."
Richard Bond, DO, a family practice physician based in Orange, found the silver lining in his malpractice experience, too. "I looked at it as an opportunity to learn. The plaintiff's attorney, as obnoxious as he was, taught me some things with the questions he asked that changed how I approach my patients today," he says.
Dr. Bond's case involved a young patient who died. He says he expected litigation because of that fact. "At the trial, there were things the plaintiff attorney said that made me think, 'Good point. I should take that to heart and learn from it.' It wasn't all negative--although at times it was hard to see that."
Those lessons were difficult to learn mostly because the lawyer offering them was extremely unpleasant, Dr. Bond says. "The attorney was very aggressive and assaulted me verbally," he says. "I was overwhelmed by it, but I realized he was doing it to try to throw me off balance and get me to admit things he wanted me to admit."
The questioning was especially tough, Dr. Bond adds, because the outcome was unavoidable and nobody's fault. "I could see their point," he says. "It was one of those things medicine is unable to pin down, but when you have someone haranguing you, it puts some doubts in your mind."
Having his insurance company behind him helped, Dr. Bond recalls. SCPIE was his first call, he says, and the team members there let him know right away their job wasn't to judge him, but to provide support. "They said, 'This is what we're here for. This is what we do.' That eased my mind. It gave me a sense of comfort that I had a reliable insurance company that would do what it could to deal with the situation," he says. In fact, his advice, should you face an unfounded lawsuit, is this: "Contact your insurance company first thing and start dealing with it."
Eight months after he made the call to SCPIE, Dr. Bond experienced his TV courtroom drama moment. "The judge said, 'Have you reached a verdict?' The jury foreman said, 'We find the defendant not guilty,'" he says. "I realized, 'They believed me. They believed the information we presented.' It was overwhelming. I shook. I kind of broke down, I guess."
Later, when he thanked the jurors personally for their careful attention to details in what he recognized was a difficult decision for them, he cried. "I thanked them for their fairness," he says. "It felt good to thank them personally."
For the record, Los Angeles-based SCPIE announced in October that it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by The Doctors Company, a leading physician-owned medical malpractice carrier based in Napa. About the combined company, Richard E. Anderson, MD, FACP, chair and CEO at The Doctors Company, says: "Together, we can be even more effective as we continue to aggressively defend claims. Members will benefit from the enhanced value of a financially strong combined organization that is relentlessly committed to protecting, defending and rewarding member physicians."
