as for typos -- spell checker has its limits. under an eye for an eye --accidental death was not included but that is a separate issue. Having lived in a country with almost no malpractice suits to speak of I can tell you it does create it's own set of problems. Since the country does have socialist health care the socialist health care system pays to fix mistakes and for ongoing care. If and when sued for pain and suffering (as rule the mentality is a lot more along the lines of -- the doctor did their best, meant well, mistakes happen) the awards are small and often unfair to the victim IMO. With that said there is much more peer review and government regulation of a doctor's license. A doctor who does something that was more than an innocent mistake will soon be looking for another profession. One step the medical community could take to help the problem is to increase the penalties and restrictions on bad doctors. Doctors must do a better job of policing their own. The strongest basis for a law suit should be that the licensing authority found a problem not that some lawyer can pull the wool over a jury's eyes. Rewards should be for true negligence not just a mistakes or bad outcomes - doctors carry malpractice insurance not errors and omissions insurance. As for lawyers --as long as lawyers can continue putting professional witnesses on the stand and pulling stunts like naming everyone and anyone and then dismissing them after costing the doctor a few thousand dollars, there will continue to be problems. One huge step forward would be to require losers to pay the winner's legal fees -- anytime a lawyer names someone and then drops them they would have to show good cause for naming them in the first place or pay their legal fees. So to clarify I am not saying we need a society without malpractice cases but we need a society the has realistic malpractice cases and does a better job of policing both it's medical and legal professions. wrote: > In a message dated 3/1/2008 6:38:28 AM Eastern Standard Time, > writes: > > The day trial lawyers and inscos are reigned in > I make enough typos that I normally apply the "glass house" rule, but this > was too entertaining to ignore... > > And as long as fantasies of restructuring social systems to eliminate the > role of lawyers are being entertained, how exactly would this society avoid all > malpractice by health care professionals. That would be the first thing such a > society would have to accomplish. In structuring this fantasy society, one > could not simply follow the existing practices sans lawyers, for malpractice > gave rise to the involvement of lawyers (and those who ignore history are doomed > to deja vu all over again). > > If it didn't, how would those who suffer adverse outcome from health care > treatment (there is certainly abundant evidence of malpractice) be compensated? > > Burying mistakes (literally) might be adequate to reduce malpractice > insurance rates, but other methods for society to hold the assumed perpetrator(s) of > malpractice liability would evolve (or devolve) that might be even more > unsatisfactory. > > Eye for an eye is perhaps the most traditional way of meting out social > justice. > > So, would it be better to pay malpractice insurance or to live in a society > where once the relatives had decided you had caused the death, they could kill > you? I suppose if nothing else, that would lead to a rapid rise in adoption > of the "say you're sorry" policy by health are professionals, which seems to > be a good first step for reducing malpractice claims... > > George > > > > **************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living. > (http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/ > 2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598) > > > > -- [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type text/x-vcard which had a name of medic.vcf]