Re: malpractice deaths

From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Fri Jan 05 2001 - 15:28:51 MST


Those numbers came from a recent Harvard Medical Practice study I believe
(I didn't post the original, so I can't speak for Michael Lorrey, but I'm
pretty sure that is where he got them from).

Other medical studies have shown that:

1% of all hospital admissions experience medical malpractice
4% of all medical doctors regularly commit malpractice
A negligible number of doctors have their licenses revoked for malpractice

Basically, most of the various studies in the U.S. and Canada seem to
indicate that about one in twenty doctors commits malpractice against their
patients on a fairly regular basis. These same studies also indicate that
the medical community has been very poor at policing itself in this regard.

-James Rogers
  jamesr@best.com

At 01:23 PM 1/5/01 -0800, you wrote:
>Can you cite a reference for this 180,000 malpractice deaths per year
>figure?
>
> From: Michael S. Lorrey
> Good point, but then again, 180,000 people die in the US every year
>from
> medical malpractice, which is obviously of epidemic proportions if
>the
> AMA's claim that 32,000 deaths a year is an epidemic, yet I don't
>see
> the AMA demanding more doctor control laws...
>



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