Medical Mistakes

Inside a suburban Chicago hospital, my wife, mother to our three children, died from what surely was a medical mistake. This unspeakable tragedy happened during a September night 32 years ago-yet, I can easily reach back and call up haunting images, as though it was yesterday.

Adele Lindeman was 40 years old when, eight days after undergoing exploratory surgery, a virulent infection cruelly ended her life. "This never should have happened," her surgeon said as we faced each other in the hospital corridor. He had arrived too late, obviously.

Of course, I sued. Years later, there was an out of court settlement--for $60,000. The money largely went toward the education of the children, who would become a lawyer, a doctor, and a screenwriter.

I call up this unwelcome history to make plain that medical errors happen- and what follows too often is deep, abiding pain and suffering. Now, having established that I am no apologist for American medicine, I tell you there is a national malpractice insurance crisis which is hurting most people, while rewarding only the few-too often the wrong few.

In the words of an editorial writer for The New York Times, this is a multifaceted crisis, and: "Rigorous studies have shown most suits filed do not involve actual negligence."

It is exceedingly difficult for the American patient, or consumer, to comprehend that not every outcome is fated to be successful. Many diseases indeed, are incurable. Meaning, they lie beyond anyone's skills to defeat or alter.

Across the United States today doctors are being heard through unprecedented job actions, or strikes. Docs simply don't show up. Thus, surgeries are halted and hospital personnel scramble to provide stopgap care. Emergency rooms, including the one my son Paul labors in, become overwhelmed.

What has brought doctors to this point, where they're willing to violate the sworn Hippocratic oath to "do no harm?" In a word: insurance. Consider, the cost of malpractice premiums, for some obstetricians and neurosurgeons, has reached $174,000 to $210,000 a year. That, by the way, is every year.

Here is what one California surgeon says is the result: "I don't want to evaluate new patients for signs they might sue; still, I can't help but look at them differently. Then, I'm forced to practice defensive medicine, ordering unnecessary tests and lastly, I don't enjoy squeezing extra patients into my schedule but I must in order to pay my malpractice bill."

Other medical doctors, often the senior specialists in their field, simply quit, or move to another state where they find an insurance carrier offering lower malpractice rates. None of this, I submit, is good for older Americans, the largest users of health care as well as people who grew up trusting "my doctor knows best."

I am not nearly wise enough to recommend a quick or easy solution to this crisis, which perhaps is oversimplified by labeling it "multifaceted." Yes, I recognize it is popular to pit doctors vs. lawyers, conceding that when sizeable malpractice judgments are returned the plaintiff's lawyers commonly walk out of court the biggest winners. Further, it needs to be said that our tort system of law currently leads to laughable actions brought because of spilled hot coffee, or lifetime cigarette abusers complaining they suddenly have emphysema. Recently, fast food dieters noticed they had become obese, and wanted someone else to pay damages.

What became of personal responsibility? What happened to corporate responsibility? When insurance giants lost money on investments in recent years, they turned to doctors and jacked up malpractice premiums. Another cycle of misery began when the doctors argued their services then merited higher patient fees.

Remember that old bromide, "Don't get sick in America"? It remains good advice, at least until congress decides to examine this garden of thorns, conducting a comprehensive inquiry with public hearings. In the interim, we suspect more doctors will hector state legislatures, staging even bigger and more frequent protests. Don't be surprised if your doctor's office phones to apologize your surgery is being postponed, due to a "sick day."

Yes, the American health care delivery system is sick ... and no one seems to want to make it well again.