Alright Eddie and Sponge,
Since you pulled "quack" and "arrogant" out of your pieholes, I do have a problem with your spin on the facts from your Michigan Law Review article.
#1.....your 80-90% win rate quote is B.S. Even your article can only estimate that worst OVERALL plaintiff win rate is 25% and they guess a number around 30% for ALL cases.
#2.....counting ALL cases includes what are generally referred to as frivolous, or weak cases against defendants. We can all agree that the defendant should win a weak case against him, assuming he is using a lawyer and not his cousin to defend him. Your article cannot get good data on the ratio of weak/good cases, and the articles it reviewed ranged from ratios of 1.9-1 all the way up to 9-1!! And this is in a state w/ a 500K cap, which you would think reduces weak claims.
#3.....the defendant win rate, or plaintiff loss rate does not include the settled cases in this review. Obvious negligence in a malpractice case never goes to trial. Its just good business to settle a loser at a discount.
#4.....the general thrust of your article seems to focus on the perception that juries cannot be trusted, not how MDs flout the system. What the hell can be the problem with the decisions made by a trial in front of the citizens??? Its not like its a bunch of MDs, lawyers, and judges are handing down verdicts right now.
#5..........Of course you have to go out of your immediate region to gather MD expert witnesses for the plaintiffs case. This is how it is everywhere. That defendant gets to sit through the experts testimony in discovery if they want, and anyone who plays poker knows its a lot more difficult to sit in front of the person you're talking about and try to pick apart a marginal case, than it is to read a chart and write a letter about what went wrong without the benefit of context. I have never heard of a malpractice carrier dropping a physician for testifying as an expert for the plaintiff.
I review local cases for all our hospitals if asked. I don't certify them, or testify in other parts of the state. I know a little about the system in one of the worst states in the union for med-mal litigation.
I'm an umpire, not an adjudicator......just call 'em like I see 'em.
Before you start the schoolyard comments about me, check your own data, then check my thoughts about this topic and other health-care related discussions on this sight. I don't circle the wagons, I don't talk sh!t, and I don't call people out until they pull some tidbit out of the thin air and call it the story.
PS You have heard of me sponge, because we traded thoughts in another health-care related thread. Look it up.
Yours truly...........Doc (and proud to be one)
