Very interesting .....
While surfing the blawgs tonight I came across a post at PointofLaw.com that led me to a very interesting read. The post refers to several posts on a blog called SurgeonsBlog published by an apparently semi-retired surgeon. In a three part series the doctor blogs about his experience being sued. The best way to get to these posts is to go to the PointofLaw post and click the links to "one, two, three."
To give you some idea of what the doctor thinks of attorneys consider the following quote:
The guys I dealt with seemed to be closer to reptilian than human, and they seemed perfectly happy to occupy that stratum. Loved it, I'd say. And whereas attorneys are the lizard-pimps, they have their snake-whores in the form of a pack of willing sleazy doctors.
As I read the posts I could sympathize with what the doctor experienced. But as I read further I thought, "Come on, every defendant and every plaintiff thinks that the other side is lying and their lawyers are scum bags." Also at first I was drawn into the doctor's position that this indeed was a frivolous lawsuit. But then he started talking about the referring doctor "who turned on me", the hospital that sold him out and the mysterious entries on medical records that were certainly forged after the fact by others trying to cover their butts.
Granted lawsuits take their toll on all the parties (and attorneys for that matter) but I certainly would prefer our system than to some bureaucratic no-fault system that would leave many people under compensated. Mediation also takes some of the sting out of the system but in my experience doctors seem to be extremely reluctant to mediate and want to dish out as good as they got.
