Tort Reform
West Virginia Attorney Richard Lindsay says such legal reforms would not be needed if there were standard guidelines for care that doctors would have to adhere to when treating patients…
“You know who’s opposed to those types of things? The medical profession,” Lindsay asked and answered on Wednesday’s MetroNews Talkline. “They don’t want to have guidelines that are written down because then they’re held to that standard of care.”
For the record the medical profession has written guidelines and standards called “the medical literature.” All professionals are held to the best standard of care in the literature and must justify their practices to their peers, patients and jury (if it comes to that). Mr. Lindsay’s distinction is that he wants to make these standards LAW. There’s a difference. Standards can be personalized, adjusted for individual circumstances and updated quickly if needed. Laws are enforceable by fine, sanction or imprisonment. Laws once enacted, are usually slow to change.
One of the hardest concepts to get across to people is that there are weaknesses in all data. EVERY study has weaknesses. EVERY standard has some assumption upon which it rests. And even some of our current best standards are not perfect.
I recently updated my basic life support (BLS) for my new hospital appointment. A few years ago it was “standard” to do 15 chest compressions for every 2 breaths when giving CPR. The new standard is 30 compressions for every 2 breaths. Could you imagine how hard this would be to change if this was put into law? It would take a congressional subcommittee, an executive panel or some form of hearings. What if in the interval between the law changing to the new standard I, as a physician well versed in the literature, performed the new standard 30/2 CPR protocol and the patient died? Would I be fined, imprisoned, sanctioned?
Think about it.
