Letters.

Gray Areas Are Green in Court

"Anyone can sue, but to be successful the plaintiff must prove that a doctor made a mistake or breached the standard of care, and that he or she caused an injury as a result." This statement, which appeared in the article "Preventing Adverse Events From Turning Into Lawsuits" (April 15, 2003, p. 29), is absolutely infuriating to those of us who have ever dealt with the justice system.

The concept that it must be proved that a mistake was made and that harm was done is widely believed by the press and the public. Most of the time, however, it could not be farther from the truth. Malpractice is not about mistakes, it is about bad outcomes. Plaintiffs' lawyers accept cases if they believe they can convince uninformed juries that doctors were some-how responsible for the bad outcomes or that the plaintiffs' pain can be ameliorated by large sums of money.

Medicine is not black and white. There is always wiggle room to show that another approach may have averted the bad outcome. The jury is always sympathetic to the person who suffered from the bad outcome and generally wants to give him or her money whether the doctor did anything wrong or not. It is just a question of putting on the right show for the jury

The word "prove" is almost never appropriate when discussing a malpractice case. Lawyers do not have to "prove" anything. Rather, they just have to convince a jury that the injured party should get a lot of money

Edward Taylor, M.D.

Wilmington, N.C.