Newsroom
Posted on Fri, Jan. 20, 2006
Lawsuit caps won't cure medical mistakes, misdiagnoses
The malpractice crisis might be over for doctors, but the patient safety crisis remains a plague in America.
Every day, anywhere from 121 to 542 hospital patients die due to preventable medical mistakes. Regardless of which studies you believe, those numbers make medical mistakes a leading cause of death in America.
Sadly, the medical community has done little or nothing to address the epidemic of misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, wrong-site surgeries, medication errors and other preventable mistakes that claim the lives of hundreds of Americans every day.
My wife was misdiagnosed by three doctors and died of breast cancer at age 42. My mission is to end the misdiagnosis of breast cancer. Visit my Web site, www.maureensmission.com, to find out more.
The medical community's solution to the malpractice crisis is to punish injured patients by limiting the amount of money a jury can award for pain and suffering. Under the limits being sought by doctors, the value of my wife's life would have been capped at $250,000.
Instead of promoting a snake-oil remedy like caps, doctors should be working to eliminate the mistakes that cause lawsuits in the first place.
Bill Thiel
West Pittston
