While reading this article I immediately thought of my Hebrew school principal. She was a large woman named Diane Berg and thus everyone called her Iceberg. Anyway, we were young at the time and didn't understand her situation. She took a leave of absence and noone knew where she went. It ended up that she went to get surgery to lose weight, whatever that is called. While getting surgery a doctor left an operating towel in her stomach. She got sick and ended up losing even more weight. After she recovered, she was at a normal weight, in the middle of winning millions of dollars and was on her way to being much healthier than before the ultimate operation.
I found this memory very comical while reading this article. Mullis talks of howthe malpractice plaintiff must show that the a duty of care was owed by the defendant, that they were negligent and thus caused an injury that affected the defendant. This of course happened in this case, but Iceberg ended up in better shape and lost more weight because of the negligence. Of course if someone left a towel in me I would be pissed and sue too, but this woman got a win win situatio
n. I'm not sure about how much she won, but she definitely lost a person from her weight.
This has to do with the current age that Mullis talks about. "The rate of litigation, the amount of damages awarded, the level of malpractice insurance premiums all reached new heights during this recent period." At one end Mullis is completely right that this has become ridiculous. Doctors are always at risk even doing intesne and advanced procedures. There's always the initial risk of doing something wrong, but the added pressure of the loss of reputation and money makes this occupation even harder.
I think of Kanye West, a multi millionaire suing doctors for the loss of his mother. She went in to get an unneccesary surgery of tummy tuck or something like that. There were complications and she died. Now, I'm not sure of the details, but suing is not going to bring Kanye's mom back. He is already loaded. So I feel as he is jsut following this stupid pattern Mullis is aware of. The concerns of this pattern are reaching an all time high and will just continue to grow. I think that these malpractices need to be taken seriously, but sensitively. There is no deviant behavior involved in one isolated accident, but repeated accounts can be targeted heavier. I think there should be a distinct difference set out in doctors just getting unlucky or severely doing something to hurt of kill or their patient.
The sociological questions that Mullis asks have to do witht he background of the case. He says that social control is a huge factor in the medical grievance. How does the person react? What's their first instinct after the fact? These are important because it can tell how legit the claim is. It will differentiate the person who si really harmed and the one just wanting to get money. The negligence must be proved well in my eyes. We can't continue to have sue happy people looking for a quick buck from any avenue.
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I didn't read this article but it is an interesting topic that is very relevant today. Looking at this sitaution through a sociological perspective it seems as though a person's reaction and particuar situation is important to understanding why they decide to sue. As we've read and discussed in other articles there are some people who are more liely to sue than others for certain reasons. This just made me think that maybe if people who experience either a loss due to surgery or some other kind of complication when the doctor is not at fault received some type of counseling it could hlp prevent people from suing in unnecessary situations.
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