ABSTRACT
Controversial and unsettled issues seem to regularly infiltrate and degrade otherwise relatively factual deliberations regarding malpractice. Physicians will be better prepared for trial if they understand the underpinnings of the typical plaintiff arguments made in malpractice suits and will be able to articulate more clearly why they disagree with arguments that are not persuasive or have questionable sources. In the recent past, a number of news pieces appeared in the press regarding excessive numbers of malpractice lawsuits, runaway juries, frivolous lawsuits, excess verdicts, and concerns that doctors were being driven out of practice by the so-called malpractice crisis. Recent legal reforms, however well-intentioned, may have been both misguided and misdirected. Reforms have done nothing to curb malpractice premiums, lower health care costs, or prevent patient injuries. Present ill-considered legislative safeguards have failed to yield the desired effects for physicians or patient safety.
