4.12.10, Terry Schuman

Q- Which group of doctors get sued the most for malpractice- highly skilled doctors or doctors who make a lot of mistakes? A- The risk of being sued for malpractice has very little to do with how few or how many mistakes a doctor makes.

Analyses of malpractice suits show that there are highly skilled doctors who get sued a lot and there are doctors who make a lot of mistakes who never get sued. Shoddy medical care seems to have little to do with it.

There seems to be a main determining factor in most cases to whether a patient will sue or not. Do you know what that factor is?

It's how the patients were treated, on a personal level, by their doctor.

A common theme in malpractice cases is that patients say they were rushed, ignored, or treated poorly by their doctors. On the other hand, leading medical malpractice lawyers state that patients rarely sue doctors they like.

Instead, if they have problems afterward, they tend to insist that it was the fault of a doctor who didn't give them the time of day, rather than the doctor who actually messed up.

Wendy Levinson, a medical researcher who has recorded hundreds of conversations between physicians and their patients, discovered an interesting fact:

Surgeons who had never been sued spent an average of three minutes longer with their patients than the surgeons who had been sued, and they also generally spoke in a tone of voice that wasn't condescending.

Levinson said the surgeons who spent the extra time with their patients were more likely to make "orienting" comments, such as, "First, I'll examine you and I will then leave time for your questions, and we'll talk the problem over."

She said they were also more likely to engage in active listening, saying things like, "Go on, tell me more about that." Interestingly, in the end, those surgeons didn't necessarily provide more details or information than the other group of surgeons who had been sued, they just spent extra time communicating to their patients, and didn't give the impression that they were talking down to them.

Every business can learn from this. You're almost guaranteed repeat and loyal customers if they're listened and communicated to appropriately. If not, well, the opposite is likely to happen.