Do Doctors Intentionally Commit Malpractice?
January 6th, 2010 | 
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Do you think your doctor woke up this morning and said “I wonder which patient I can commit malpractice on today?”
Do you think your doctor went to medical school for four years and postgraduate training, known as a residency for 3-6 years, and then into private practice just so he can turn around and commit malpractice? Do you think a physician enjoys paying $180,000 for an insurance policy to protect them in the event a patient sues them for medical malpractice in the state of New York? That is the cost for an obstetrician and gynecologist on the North Shore of Long Island to obtain medical malpractice insurance.
A doctor who intentionally commits wrongdoing on a patient creates many legal problems. If a doctor commits an intentional harm, that is known as an assault and battery. Those are criminal matters that can land a doctor in jail. In addition, if a physician intentionally harms a patient, typically his medical malpractice insurance company will refuse to cover any lawsuit where the patient brings a claim against the doctor seeking compensation. Why? Because in every medical malpractice insurance policy in New York, it will only cover a doctor only for unintentional acts. That means that if the doctor was careless or negligent, the insurance policy will cover the claims up to the amount that they have insurance coverage for. There have been instances where a physician has committed an intentional harm and the insurance company disclaimed and refused to participate in a lawsuit against the doctor. In that event, the doctor is left with no insurance to pay compensation to the injured victim.
That ultimately means that the injured victim and their attorney must prosecute their case against the doctor personally, and attempt to go after the doctor’s personal assets if they are victorious.
What are some examples of intentional conduct that cause harm?
A few years ago in New York there was a mentally unbalanced surgeon who carved his initials on a patient’s internal organs. Thankfully, that physician’s license to practice medicine has been revoked. If memory serves me correctly, that physician may still be in jail today.
An injured victim often questions why they suffered injury at the hands of a doctor or hospital. A patient may feel that the doctor intentionally harmed them. Others recognize that physicians are human and can make mistakes and errors. The problem is that when a physician makes a mistake, the result can have deadly consequences.
In my experience as a medical malpractice trial attorney in New York, I’ve never seen a physician intentionally cause harm to a particular patient. That’s not to say that it has not happened, and that is not to say that it does not happen. However, the majority of physicians wake up each morning expecting and hoping to do good for the patient’s that walk in their door.
We place our trust and our lives in the hands of doctors. They have specialized knowledge that we as laypeople do not have. We often expect them to be super-human, and when they exhibit frailties and errors, we become frustrated and upset.
A physician’s lack of communication with their patient following a complication or error is the major cause of an injured victim picking up the phone and calling me. If more physicians were transparent in what they did and owned up to the fact that they are human, I believe more patients would understand and accept the doctor’s explanation.
However, even a physician who admits responsibility to a patient after causing harm may not escape a lengthy medical malpractice lawsuit. The patient may require a lifetime of ongoing medical care and corrective surgery. If that individual lacks health insurance, or an ability to pay for the ongoing medical care, the patient may have no alternative but to bring a lawsuit against the physician seeking compensation for all of the medical bills they have incurred in the past as well as all the future medical bills they can expect to incur in the future.
In addition, if the physician has caused a patient harm, the doctor creates a debt that can only be repaid with money. In our system of justice, compensation is really a form of repayment of a debt that is owed by the physician to the patient.
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