We have selected a few recent cases of suits for malpractice with the
object of calling the attention of physicians to the importance of
adopting some plan looking toward the suppression of quackery and the
protection of professional rights when assailed by hostile influences.
“In April, 1884, Dr. Graves of Petaluma, California, was called to see
Mrs. Winters, the wife of a laborer whose family he had attended
gratuitously for nearly sixteen years. He found that the woman, who was
fifty-eight years of age, had fallen from a height and injured her
ankle. The limb was very much swollen, so as to interfere with
examination, but no crepitus could be elicited, neither was there any
displacement, or shortening; and as the swelling continued, the limb was
placed in position and wrapped loosely in cloth saturated with anodyne
lotions. The patient, we are told, received every attention from Dr.
Graves, but there was left finally some stiffening of the joint and a
very slight inversion of the foot. No complaints were made until a new
doctor arrived in the town, who told the patient the limb had been badly
treated and advised her to sue for malpractice. The case was examined by
ten of the chief surgeons in the State, including Drs. Lane, McLean,
Morse and Dennis, all of whom said that there might have been a sprain
or an incomplete fracture of the external malleolus, but that the ends
of the bones were in perfect apposition and never had been separated,
and that the stiffening was probably due to inflammatory adhesions. Two
other doctors, one of whom being he who advised the suit, testified that
there was shortening of the limb, and that the lower fragment of the
tibia had been driven up and behind the fibula. One of these would-be
surgeons, Dr. Wells, is nearly eighty years of age, and had not read a
work on surgery for thirty years; the other, Dr. Ivancovich, confessed
he had no special experience in surgery. Their incompetence may be
judged from the way they measured the patient's limb in court. This was
done by taking a carpenter's rigid rectangular rule, and measuring the
limb as she maintained the upright position. The result was that in the
opinion of nine jurymen the testimony of two unknown, inexperienced
general practitioners out-weighed that of ten specialists in surgery,
all of whom possess a national reputation, so that a verdict was
returned in favor of the plaintiff, awarding her eight thousand dollars
damages.”
“Some three years ago Dr. Purdy, a well-known and esteemed physician,
gave notice to the health department of New York City, in accordance
with a regulation of the sanitary code which makes it the duty of
physicians to notify this department of cases of infectious diseases,
that in his opinion a young woman who was under his treatment was
suffering with smallpox. The department sent one of its medical officers
to investigate the case. The diagnosis made by Dr. Purdy was then
confirmed and by the authority of the board of health the patient was
transferred to the smallpox hospital. After a day or two the patient was
discharged. This patient immediately brought suit against Dr. Purdy for
$10,000 damages, on the ground of injury to her business and of the
false diagnosis upon the part of her medical attendance. The jury which
tried this case gave a verdict of $500 against the defendant. The
singular injustice of this verdict resides in the fact that damages
should have been brought against Dr. Purdy, when, in point of fact, the
injury to the plaintiff was inflicted by the health department, which
not only affirmed the diagnosis of the attending physician, but caused
the removal of the patient to be made to the smallpox hospital. It
appears that Dr. Purdy's sole error in the case was in informing the
health authorities of the possible existence of smallpox. In the
discharge of a duty imposed upon him by a city ordinance he has been
subjected to the expense and annoyance of a legal case, and has been
mulcted by a jury to the extent of $500.”
“Another suit of a blackmailing character has been brought against Dr.
E. Williams and partners of Cincinnati, O. According to the Cincinnati
_Medical News_, the charge was that they had permitted a small scale of
iron, that had entered the eye of a boy, to remain, by which he
eventually became blind—the sound eye becoming affected through sympathy
with the injured one and losing the power of vision. It was proven on
trial that the boy had visited the office of Dr. Williams but twice, and
then had ceased calling because he was informed that, to preserve the
sound eye and be saved from blindness, he must consent to have the eye
that had been destroyed removed from its socket, to which his parents
would not consent. For several months after declining the services of
Dr. Williams and associates, he spent his time in going the rounds of
the specialists of diseases of the eye, putting his case in charge, at
different times, of both regular and homœopathic physicians. Every
ophthalmologist by whom he was treated informed him that the only way by
which he could avoid becoming blind was to have the injured eye removed.
Finally, after losing sight in both eyes, he brought suit. The medical
testimony, we are told, was uniformly in favor of Dr. Williams, but the
jury disagreed.”
“The Boston correspondent of _The Northwestern Lancet_ writes: 'Dr. A.,
a reputable practitioner living in a New England city, attended Mr. B.
for a fractured thigh. The case did well, and the patient recovered
without deformity. No measurements were recorded by the attending
surgeon, but he was able to swear that the result was to him perfectly
satisfactory. A year or two later the patient entered suit against Dr.
A. for malpractice, and exhibited a leg considerably shortened and
deformed. A jury at once found a verdict for the plaintiff, and awarded
damages in some six or seven thousand dollars, a sum which seriously
crippled the physician. He devoted his energies thereafter to
discovering what he believed to be a fraud, and finally obtained
evidence that B. had, subsequently to his recovery under A.'s
attendance, again fractured the same thigh while in the Adirondack
wilderness, and had, on that occasion, had no surgical attendance
whatever. The physician was able to recover his money, but was at the
expense of his detectives' and lawyers' fees, to say nothing of years of
anxiety and of damage to his professional reputation.'”
The case of Drs. Reed and Ford of Norwalk, Ohio, will be remembered by
many Cleveland physicians. Miss Pierce, a comely young lady, sustained a
Colles fracture, and was attended by Drs. Reed and Ford. Suit was
brought twice in county court and dismissed because plaintiff did not
desire to try the case. A few days before the case was outlawed, suit
was brought in the United States Court at Cleveland. Many physicians
were called on both sides, and the testimony of all the physicians, with
probably one exception, was that the treatment was good and the result
better than is usual with such fractures. Flexion extension, pronation
and supination were perfect. She had, however, the power, when the arm
was midway between pronation and supination, of bending the wrist toward
the radius, and by making the head of the ulna prominent she was able to
make an apparent deformity. Her case, then, was her ability to make an
apparent deformity by twisting her wrist. (She could do the same with
the unfractured wrist.) She was a good-looking woman, and therefore
entitled to sympathy. She followed up the case persistently for six
years, therefore there must be some merit in the case. The doctors all
testified against her, so there was a combination of the doctors which
must not be countenanced. Upon this strong case twelve intelligent
jurors awarded thirteen hundred dollars damages. The judge subsequently
reduced this to five hundred. Is it any wonder, when such things can be
done in the State of Ohio, in the name of justice, that physicians like
old Dr. Kirtland refused to attend cases of fracture under any
circumstances? or that it is not unusual to hear surgeons of recognized
ability say they dare not possess property for fear of suits for
damages?
Frequently physicians are accused of malpractice, and rather than
undergo the expense and inconvenience of a suit they will submit to an
extortion of money; or if a suit is lost in court through prejudice,
unjust decisions, inability to secure good council or other unavoidable
cause, rather than undertake to carry the case to a higher court, the
physician will pay the damages, and thus establish a precedent which
renders every physician under similar circumstances liable to a suit for
damages. It is always observed whenever a large amount of damages is
collected from a physician, numerous other suits on all sorts of cases
are commenced. Such a condition of affairs ought not to exist.
Physicians can not expect legislators to look after their interests
until their grievances are made known. The testimony of physicians as
individuals will not carry enough weight to accomplish anything. Moves
have been made in this direction through the County and State societies
and failed first, because the members of the societies are divided among
themselves, second, because they represent only a fractional portion of
the profession. Out of the thousands of physicians practicing in Ohio
there are only about seven hundred members of the State society.
We believe the object of county, state and national medical societies
are intended for purely scientific work, and the less of medical
politics brought into them the better. But when there is some definite
end to be accomplished, some gross wrong to be righted, some persecuted
physician defended, there ought to be some organization including
physicians of all schools, independent of the medical societies as now
organized. When a physician is sued for damages, if his case is worthy
of being defended, the entire profession ought to lend him their moral
as well as financial support, and this could be rendered in no way
better than by means of some organization similar to the Medical Defense
Association of England.