Malpractice and medical liability

Are Teams chats private? Not when a lawyer comes asking

Timothy Lesaca, MD

November 6, 2026Nov 6, 2026

Workplace messaging platforms such as Microsoft Teams have become a regular part of clinical work. Health care organizations rely on them to coordinate schedules, manage logistics, and keep teams connected across different locations and telehealth settings. Because these channels are closed to outsiders and separate from the electronic health record, clinicians may view them as informal, friendly, and private. However, it’s worth reconsidering that belief, as it is far from …

I went to space and still teach physician expert witnesses

Gretchen E. Green, MD

November 5, 2026Nov 5, 20262

When I traveled to space aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard in May 2025, I fulfilled a dream that had begun nearly forty years earlier at Space Camp. I became the first woman physician commercial astronaut, an achievement that still feels…

When I traveled to space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard in May 2025, I fulfilled a dream that had begun nearly forty years earlier at Space Camp. I became the first woman physician commercial astronaut, an achievement that still feels extraordinary to me.

You might think that after reaching my highest goal, I would leave my previous professional life behind. After all, I retired from clinical medicine in 2024 and have …

Health policy

Why the best physicians admit diagnostic uncertainty

Tim George, JD

November 4, 2026Nov 4, 2026

"I don't know yet." They're only four words, but they may be among the most important words a physician can say. Most of us are uncomfortable with uncertainty, especially when our health is involved. If we've been living with unexplained…

“I don’t know yet.” They’re only four words, but they may be among the most important words a physician can say.

Most of us are uncomfortable with uncertainty, especially when our health is involved. If we’ve been living with unexplained pain, frightening symptoms, or a diagnosis we don’t fully understand, naturally we want answers. We want someone to tell us what is wrong and what happens next.

Doctors understand that desire. Good …

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Does a DNR order mean do not intubate? Not always

Ferdinando Mirarchi, DO

November 4, 2026Nov 4, 20265

A 49-year-old man was alive because emergency physicians had saved his life once before. Now, three years later, another emergency physician saved his life again. But instead of a thank you, this physician and the hospital that saved his life…

It all began with nine words reportedly spoken by another physician: “That damn ER doctor should have never intubated you.”

Sometimes when you …

Medical malpractice lawsuits need a test for merit

November 3, 2026Nov 3, 20262

Medical malpractice lawsuits make doctors very vulnerable in an unsettling future. Since the 1960s, medical malpractice lawsuits caused the unmitigated failure to control health care costs. Even today we have no idea of the number of medical malpractice lawsuits filed each year and, least of all, how many of these lawsuits are non-meritorious. Likely it is intended for us not to know because whatever is measured is managed and those …

Why malpractice carriers settle cases they could win

October 29, 2026Oct 29, 20262

As a doctor, I rely on legislators to safeguard my professional interests, most of which concern medical malpractice litigation. However, because they fail in this mission, I do not trust them, so I become proactive. I know that medical malpractice…

I know that medical malpractice insurance carriers face operational challenges, to which I am completely sympathetic. The most important challenge is whether to settle a defensible case, which involves a severe complication but no negligence, or …

Why malpractice lawsuits are rarer but more expensive than ever [PODCAST]

October 26, 2026Oct 26, 2026

Doctors are sued far less often than they were 25 years ago, but the average malpractice payout has never been higher. Robert E. White, Jr., president of The Doctors Company, has spent 58 years in malpractice insurance. This episode is…

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Frivolous malpractice lawsuits need a quantitative test

October 24, 2026Oct 24, 20264

Many books describe medical malpractice. Among them are Medical Malpractice; Medical Malpractice: A Physician's Sourcebook; The Malpractice Myth; A Measure of Malpractice: Medical Injury, Malpractice Litigation, and Patient Compensation; Medical Malpractice: Theory, Evidence, and Public Policy; To Err Is Human;…

Many books describe medical malpractice. Among them are Medical Malpractice; Medical Malpractice: A Physician’s Sourcebook; The Malpractice Myth; A Measure of Malpractice: Medical Injury, Malpractice Litigation, and Patient Compensation; Medical Malpractice: Theory, Evidence, and Public Policy; To Err Is Human; Medical Law and Ethics; and Medical Liability and Treatment Relationships: A Physician’s Insight Into Medical Negligence. These are all described as “groundbreaking.”

I developed a decision-making method that I call Collate, …

What health care gets wrong about mid-career physicians

Ben Feldman, MD

October 22, 2026Oct 22, 2026

I'll never forget the moment when I knew I was going to have to make a big transition. After more than a decade of navigating what had become an ongoing tension between work and life, I remember running the numbers…

I’ll never forget the moment when I knew I was going to have to make a big transition. After more than a decade of navigating what had become an ongoing tension between work and life, I remember running the numbers one evening and realizing something had to give. My overhead and schedule pressures became impossible to ignore.

As a private-practice otolaryngologist, I lived and worked in the same community where my …

Conditions and diseases

Preventable birth injuries happen at great hospitals too

Frank S. Gaudio, JD

October 22, 2026Oct 22, 2026

One of the first things parents tell me is where their baby was born. Almost instinctively, they add something like, "It's one of the best hospitals in the area." I believe them. Many of the birth injury cases I've handled…

One of the first things parents tell me is where their baby was born. Almost instinctively, they add something like, “It’s one of the best hospitals in the area.” I believe them.

Many of the birth injury cases I’ve handled over the years have come from hospitals with outstanding reputations. Hospitals people drive hours to reach. Hospitals with nationally recognized physicians, advanced neonatal units, impressive research programs and walls lined with …

Physician finance

A medical license scam nearly took my life savings

Lynn R. Webster, MD

October 21, 2026Oct 21, 20262

As a physician, I spent decades training to manage medical crises, yet I nearly lost my life savings to a calculated deception. The caller offered me two ways to protect my assets: convert everything to gold and take it to…

As a physician, I spent decades training to manage medical crises, yet I nearly lost my life savings to a calculated deception.

The caller offered me two ways to protect my assets: convert everything to gold and take it to Washington, D.C., for deposit with the Department of the Treasury, or convert everything to digital currency.

By then, I had spent nearly three weeks communicating with people I believed might be investigating …

The medical malpractice crisis began in Cook County

October 15, 2026Oct 15, 2026

The story of medical malpractice litigation in the United States is like the famous passage in Macbeth. "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Medical malpractice lawsuits are nothing new. They have…

The story of medical malpractice litigation in the United States is like the famous passage in Macbeth. “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Medical malpractice lawsuits are nothing new. They have been filed and tried in America’s courts since 1784. Between 1835 and 1865, there was a rash of them. One might even call it a crisis.

Medical liability insurance is, also, …

How a misread living will led to a 6-day court fight

Ferdinando Mirarchi, DO

October 15, 2026Oct 15, 2026

Six days. $20,000 in legal fees. One advance directive (living will) applied too soon. A 60-year-old man suffered complications after cardiac catheterization, developing acute kidney injury from the intra-arterial dye and pulmonary edema requiring intubation. Serious? Yes. Reversible? Yes. The…

Six days. $20,000 in legal fees. One advance directive (living will) applied too soon.

A 60-year-old man suffered complications after cardiac catheterization, developing acute kidney injury from the intra-arterial dye and pulmonary edema requiring intubation. Serious? Yes. Reversible? Yes.

The patient just needed short-term ventilatory support and temporary dialysis. The plan, consent, and scheduling of a temporary dialysis catheter ensued. Then his advance directive was found.

The attending physician concluded the patient should …

Who vets your medical malpractice expert witness?

October 13, 2026Oct 13, 2026

The famous passage in Macbeth, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," refers to the futility of life. Or does it refer to a medical malpractice lawsuit? There are 175 lawyers in Congress; 1…

The famous passage in Macbeth, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” refers to the futility of life. Or does it refer to a medical malpractice lawsuit?

There are 175 lawyers in Congress; 1 out of every 3 members is a lawyer. There are, also, 20 doctors; 1 out of every 27 members is a doctor.

Of the 175 lawyers, those who were formerly malpractice attorneys …

Medical malpractice verdicts rarely heal what hurts

Anthony Grandelis, MD

October 11, 2026Oct 11, 2026

We have built a society that runs on the promise of justice, and it is quietly making us miserable. We wait for the verdict, the apology, the firing, the settlement. We believe that when it comes, the wrong will be righted and we will finally feel whole. But, to me, the idea that justice rights a wrong is not true. We only think it makes us feel better. But does …

4 steps to prove a breach of standard of care

October 10, 2026Oct 10, 2026

Step 1: Collate. Organize the standard of care and the medical intervention into 10 corresponding phases with a respective duty. Step 2: Compare. Compare corresponding phases using three measures: Background risk: Each phase in the standard of care. It is…

Step 1: Collate. Organize the standard of care and the medical intervention into 10 corresponding phases with a respective duty.

Step 2: Compare. Compare corresponding phases using three measures:

Background risk: Each phase in the standard of care. It is the probability that the complication is a random error-of-nature.
Relative risk: Risk of harm for each phase in the medical intervention. If there is no difference between a phase in standard

…

Conditions and diseases

Should good faith immunity cover trained clinicians?

Erin Daugherty, RN

October 8, 2026Oct 8, 2026

The high-profile Take Care of Maya case, chronicled in the Netflix documentary, placed the complex legal doctrines of qualified immunity and good faith immunity directly into the public spotlight. While a jury initially awarded the Kowalski family $261 million in damages (later reduced to $213.5 million) against Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital for claims including false imprisonment, medical negligence, and wrongful death, a Florida appellate court overturned the verdict. The …

An expert witness got patient autonomy exactly wrong

October 2, 2026Oct 2, 2026

One medical expert for the plaintiff attorney is most credited for the outcome in a widely publicized obstetric malpractice case against an academic medical center. That outcome is, at most, dubious, and that medical expert is, at most, highly credentialed, holding a medical degree along with several additional advanced degrees and training as an obstetrician and as a perinatologist.

It is his opinion that the baby suffered brain damage largely because …

Blame culture in medicine leaves young doctors traumatized

Farid Sabet-Sharghi, MD

October 1, 2026Oct 1, 2026

It plays out like a modern-day digital horror movie. On my social media feed, a snippet of a horribly sad drama catches my eye: A young woman, devastated and paralyzed by an unimaginable tragedy, has taken the lives of her own children. She had previously been under medical care, presenting with a complex psychiatric history that navigated the difficult waters often met with multiple therapies: antidepressants, anti-anxiety agents, and various …

Blaming the doctor is cheaper than fixing the record system [PODCAST]