Medical Malpractice

I'm going to rant now.

My sister-in-law, my cousin's wife, and two of my best friends are nurses. I have another friend who is a doctor, and my brother is a veterinarian.

My wife is going through nursing school. She's had a lot of discouragement in pursuing nursing, ranging from people telling her that they don't think she personally can do it, to people telling horror stories about the profession and/or the hospitals and organizations she's likely to work for. They keep bringing up how you have to be careful not to get sued. This is like a journey where every bend has another crudely painted warning sign on it to the effect of "Beware! Go back!" She has this life long dream to do something that will help people and that she has always been interested in. It's hard enough to do it without all the obstacles of everyday life. On top of that, there are these people that are telling her this is a bad idea. She has not been happy with this. I just tell her that they are all unequivocally and absolutely wrong and that I'm proud of her and that she is doing something hard and wonderful.

I don't think anyone breezes through Nursing School. The things that are truly worth doing aren't always easy to do. And some sleazy lawyer that thinks suing medical people is a good way to make money should have a med-alert bracelet that says "I sue doctors, nurses, and paramedics!" and anyone that finds a patient with one of those bracelets should be able to just refuse treatment without any penalties.

Seriously, this is like going out and shooting the people that are purifying your water or burning down farms that are producing your food. Have these people gone mad? If it weren't for the fact that most of the people that make the laws in this country are lawyers, this kind of crap would never be tolerated.

Aristotle called a society where most people toil to provide for a few an Oligarchy. I guess we have a legal oligarchy in this country when it comes to Medical Malpractice. Guess who pays for these self-appointed guardians of their own wallets? We all do. Medical costs in this country have outstripped inflation for years. Take medical malpractice insurance out of the mix and what happens? Does it fix everything magically? No, but it helps. Why are we attacking a system whose only purpose is to relieve suffering and stop us from dying? Why not just make it legal to shoot waitresses in restaurants? How dare they bring you food! What an affront! While we're at it, let's make it legal to run postal employees and delivery people off the road! The heck with them, they're slowing me down! Let's create a sport where we can throw Molotov cocktails at firemen if they are trying to put out a burning building. And if you are flying in a plane, you should be able to take a nightstick to the pilot for amusement. It should be alright for anyone in a vehicle to strike the driver in the face while they are driving. This will really help society a lot, won't it?

I'm not saying that bad doctors shouldn't be exposed, mistreatments shouldn't be brought to light, and victims of bad medical care should not be compensated. But only boards of doctors and medical personnel should be reviewing these cases, not lay people that don't understand the science, but sure can be swayed to compassion for the poor victim. Medical mistakes should be immediately dissected and disseminated as widely as possible. There should not be any penalty for mistakes that fall under the category of nobody could have known any better, reasonable and rational decisions were made, things just went bad. Doctors that should know better that make serious mistakes should have their licenses reviewed and should be removed from active practice with patients if they have more than one serious mistake with a patient. After the first mishap, they should be on probation. Panels of experts should make the rulings on whether appropriate treatment was received. Compensation should be limited to what that person would have earned plus additional expenses brought about by the condition they are left in. Students should be studying the mistakes doctors and nurses make and learning from them.

The medical system is not perfect, but it will not be able to reach it's full potential if greedy selfish lawyers see it as their mission and a worthwhile profession to dedicate their lives to pulling the medical profession down and lining their pockets in the process.