What Are The Chances of Getting Sued If You Are A Good Doctor? Visit us online at [ Ссылка ] or call 877-633-5878.
Dr. Jeff Segal, MD, founder, and CEO of Medical Justice explains the real risk of practicing medicine and why it's important for ALL doctors to be prepared for the likelihood of being sued. As a neurosurgeon himself, Dr. Segal had a lawsuit brought against him. Even though the case was dropped and never went to court, he vowed to help other doctors from having a similar experience so they could do what they love; practicing medicine.
Transcript
What's the likelihood of being sued? Isn't it true that just bad doctors are sued?
Well, actually not. Being sued is an occupational hazard of being a physician. Let me give you some sobering statistics: If you are a surgeon, the likelihood of you being sued by the age of 65 is approximately 99 percent. If you're a low-risk physician, the likelihood of you being sued by the age of 65 is 75 percent. So it's very difficult to go your entire career without being sued.
Now the good news is that most of the time the doctor will prevail. But given how much emotional angst takes place while you're being sued, being on the right side, meaning prevailing or winning is cold comfort to most doctors. Most doctors would prefer never to be sued in the first place.
Let me drill down a little bit further in terms of specialties. So my specialty, neurological surgeon, we're sued at the rate of about 19 percent a year. 19 percent a year. General surgeons, 15 percent a year. Orthopedic surgeons, 14 percent a year, OB-GYN, 12 percent a year. These are whopping, large numbers.
So the likelihood of being able to go an entire career and avoid being sued, very low. Now, what happens if you are sued? You are going to be labeled a bad doctor. And it is true that good doctors will make mistakes. On occasion, a good doctor will commit negligence which will injure the patient. I like to think of this as a snapshot as opposed to a movie. I mean, we take this very personally. We take care of our patients from beginning to end but once a doctor is sued, their thinking is that every patient is a plaintiff and they're being painted in a very negative light. Our job, our task, one of the things that we do is to help doctors manage the anxiety, the angst of this very lonely process.
What Are The Chances of Getting Sued If You Are A Good Doctor? Medical Justice Visit us online at [ Ссылка ] or call 877-633-5878.
