‘Craze for Lawsuits’

Conine’s article is must reading for everyone! It deserves my praise as a practicing physician.

The malpractice craze is out of hand. The courts are loaded with frivolous malpractice charges against doctors that have no logical basis. “Judges and juries should ponder the effect on the world outside the courtroom,” Conine wisely wrote in his very important article. Yes, one can understand that a doctor who removes the wrong kidney or severs a large artery could, and should, be sued! The percentage of such occurrences is very rare. How about the thousands of doctors who every day courageously do procedures in an expert, caring and lifesaving manner? These men and women valiantly serve the needs of their patient--rich and poor--knowing full well that some financially needy lawyer will readily accept an already insecure patient’s desire to sue a physician.

Conine stated that we all pay in the form of higher premiums for our own insurance--and higher prices are passed along by businesses whose insurance costs keep going up.

A reference could have been made about the tragic vaccine situation in our most scientifically advanced country. Who is going to take the moral responsibility for the deaths of little children caused by the lack of proper immunization? Does the public know that vital vaccines are in short supply, expensive and fearfully administered by doctors? Why? Simply because utter terror has been instilled into them by fear of needless and emotional lawsuits.

Our country has led the world in preventive medicine, and I do not need to remind you of the great works of Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Albert Sabin in preventing polio. The vaccine presently referred to is pertussis vaccine (whooping cough vaccine usually given in combination with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines, called DPT). The incidences of allergic reaction and death due to this vaccine have been minimal, yet the companies that produce the vaccine and the physicians who administer it have been sued in these rares cases of reaction. Look at the positive and health-giving results in the vast majority of children!

The cure? Change the tort system! Impose penalties upon both the attorneys and those that bring about selfish, frivolous and money-seeking lawsuits. The costs are rising to a point where everyone suffers.

FLOYD A. NASSSIF MD

Glendale