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By Deroy Murdock
New Hampshire Union Leader
July 16, 2005
Across the years and through the morphine, I recall an anesthesiologist explaining how he goofed during major surgery — on me. I was in a dreadful car crash in 1986. While trying to insert a small antibiotic tube near my heart, a Tucson Medical Center anesthetist accidentally slipped and punctured my lung, making it collapse. As I recovered from that morning’s incisions, he detailed his mistake and said he was sorry.
“I have two questions,” I groggily declared: “Did you intentionally collapse my lung?”
“No,” the doctor replied.
“Were you trying to make me better?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Well, then I forgive you. Thank you for putting me back together.”
Absent that apology, a gurney-chasing attorney could have convinced me to sue this physician for malpractice. Instead, I was touched by his honesty and felt no malice toward him. As I recuperated, litigating against him was the last thing on my mind.
Along these lines, a new organization called “The Sorry Works! Coalition” (SorryWorks.net) hopes to curb lawsuits stemming from medical errors. It encourages doctors and hospitals to fess up when they screw up and offer fair compensation to those they have harmed. This simple idea should brighten the climate wherein doctors often fear the sick as potential litigants, while too many patients treat practitioners like unguarded pots of gold.
Sorry Works! cites several apologies that have vaccinated physicians against lawsuits:
• Linda Kenney had ankle surgery in 1999, but nearly died after accidentally receiving anesthesia in her heart. The anesthetist ignored the hospital’s advice and apologized for his gaffe. She never sued, and the two have become friends.
“For him, it was like a great weight was lifted from his shoulders,” Kenney told Boston’s CBS-4 TV. “For me, it was like freedom to move on.”
• A misprogrammed pump gave a child a fatal dose of painkillers at a University of Michigan hospital. Its medical director apologized to the grieving mother. Despite capturing his words on tape, she refused to sue and accepted an undisclosed settlement.
• When another Michigan patient suffered blurry vision after Lasik eye surgery, he prepared to sue. The doctor explained that corneal wrinkling is a standard risk in such procedures, and that he did nothing wrong. The patient dropped his suit and let that physician correct the damage.
Apologies have saved providers plenty in legal fees and payouts.
• The Veterans Administration Medical Center in Lexington, Ky., launched an apology policy in 1987. By 2000, it had settled with 170 patients and only thrice went to trial. Its average payment across all claims was $16,000 compared to the VA system’s $98,000 average in 2000.
• University of Michigan hospitals have cut routine caseloads from 260 to 275 claims in 2002 to 120 to 140 today. Concluding a typical case required 1,160 days (about three years and two months) then, vs. 320 days (10 and a half months) now, a 72.4 percent savings. Per-case legal costs have plunged from $65,000 to $35,000. Annual legal defense expenses have dropped from roughly $3 million to $1 million.
• Denver-based COPIC Insurance Companies covers some 5,800 Colorado physicians, of whom 1,942 participate in its 3-R’s Program. Since late 2000, this initiative has sought to “recognize, respond (to) and resolve” medical errors.
“The average payment in 3-R’s cases is $5,586,” says COPIC’s George Dikeou, “while the average outside the program is about $284,000.”
“The majority of people who file medical lawsuits file out of anger, not greed,” says Sorry Works! founder Doug Wojcieszak. “That anger is driven by lack of communication, being abandoned by doctors and no one taking responsibility for his mistakes. Apologizing and offering some up-front compensation reduces this anger.”
Seventeen states have enacted apology laws; some make remorseful words inadmissible in court if uttered soon after mishaps occur. U.S. Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., introduced the Reliable Medical Justice Act on June 29 to provide federal funding for apology projects around the nation. While the need for federal grants here is a mystery, Washington should encourage this concept without reflexively whipping out the checkbook. Implementing it in VA hospitals would be a solid start.
This terrific idea should sweep the nation. To cure medical-malpractice lawsuits, “sorry” shouldn’t be the hardest word.
Deroy Murdock is a columnist with Scripps Howard News Service and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Va. E-mail him at deroy.murdock@gmail.com
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