Interesting..

#3 When I as researching my doctoral thesis on quality processes, I came across research that indicates the number one cause of death in the US by a wide margin was medical malpractice with over 1,500,000 dying every year from misdiagnosis medication mistakes botched surgeries and irresponsible behavior

From 2017:

“Recent studies of medical errors have estimated errors may account for as many as 251,000 deaths annually in the United States (U.S)., making medical errors the third leading cause of death. Error rates are significantly higher in the U.S. than in other developed countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the United Kingdom (U.K). At the same time less than 10 percent of medical errors are reported.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28186008/

Under-reporting seems to be a problem. And, outside of deaths, how many injuries are related to medical malpractice?

The devil, as they say, is in the details.

For example: are all errors that happen, malpractice (which suggests intent)? An example might be a scalpel slip during surgery.

Are all poor outcomes due to malpractice? An example might be an elderly person who develops pneumonia after surgery, because their cough response is not good or because they aspirated after eating.

Is it malpractice if a radiation oncologist announces a patient is cured, who dies 3 months later due to a metastisis that no one found?

Just a few thoughts....

Curiosity got the better of me, so, having a few extra minutes, I just did a little webbrowsing and came up with what seem to be some interesting, and I assume objective, facts about medical malpractice in the U.S.

Some facts and their sources:

" ... you have a one in 112,000 chance of having to deal with this aspect of medical malpractice (for surgery). For a hospital, this means that it may not encounter this error more often than once in five years or even a decade."

https://www.lewislawfirmhouston.com/blog/2021/07/the-prevalence-of-surgical-errors-in-medical-malpractice/#:~:text=averaging%20out%20the%20occurrences%2c%20studies%20show%20that%20you,decade.%20operations%20outside%20an%20operating%20room%20are%20riskier

" ... the average settlement for this kind of case (medical malpractice) hovers around just under half a million dollars."

https://www.forthepeople.com/medical-malpractice-attorney/average-settlement-information/

" ... physicians win the majority of these cases. Physicians win 80% to 90% of jury trials with weak evidence, around 70% of cases with borderline evidence, and 50% of trials with strong evidence of medical negligence."

https://www.rosenbaumfirm.com/chances-of-winning-medical-malpractice-suit.html

" ... plastic surgeons had the highest percentage of practitioners with a history of a lawsuit, with 83% of respondents in this specialty saying they had faced legal action. Other top-ranking areas were: Orthopedics, with 80% of physicians surveyed saying they have been named in a medical malpractice lawsuit; Urology (80%) (OH MY!)); OB/GYN (79%); Emergency medicine (70%) ... In addition to the above, over half of physicians specializing in otolaryngology, radiology and cardiology had been named in a medical malpractice lawsuit."

https://www.theburchettlawfirm.com/blog/2021/12/what-medical-areas-face-the-most-malpractice-suits/#:~:text=what%20medical%20areas%20face%20the%20most%20malpractice%20suits%3f,3%20ob%2Fgyn%20%2879%25%29%204%20emergency%20medicine%20%2870%25%29%20

Interesting stuff.

And if I may be allowed a personal observation, it seems to me that TV lawyer ads trying to reach possible medical malpractice clients have soared in recent years. ("Stan got me $500,000,000. Thanks, Stan!"). Or it sure seems that way in my area.

Why? Perhaps because, as a little webreading informed me, employment prospects for MM lawyers have been and will continue to be good now and for some time to come, largely because of two factors: (1) it is and has been one of the more "lucrative" legal specialties, and (2) the number of older Americans continues to grow, which is leading to increased opportunities for MM actions.

Hmmm ...

Also, not sure why urologists scored so badly on the survey mentioned above. Or maybe it's just one of those cases where another survey produces an entirely different result.

Oh! Wait a minute! Maybe it's because many of the people who go to urologists are older, which ties in with the comment above about an older population being fertile ground for MM actions.

I wonder how many casualties stem from over treatment and undertreatment and misinformation from everywhere including meaning well sites such as this( mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa) ...the road to intensions is full of hair extensions...postscript... casualties are not necessarily deaths...do not rule them out...

IT, I agree. And, not infrequently, we have many people-both doctors and well meaning laypeople, who go down the road of forcing pointless treatments on the very sick, and then refusing to acknowledge that their treatment did nothing but cause untold suffering for the last weeks of life.