Hi Danielle,

I don’t recall seeing those warnings at the gas station, but I suppose that’s another good example.

As far as the cronyism you express concern about, I assume you mean “How would you guard against physicians sitting in a jury finding a fellow physician innocent of malpractice simply because they are buddies?”

Please let me know if you meant something else.

Basically, what it would mostly boil down to is professionalism.

Physicians are professionals. A profession is different than just a job. It is a calling. It is in a physicians professional interest to expose true malpractice and incompetent physicians.

Unfortunately, physicians are also human. Further, the concept of professionalism over all has been significantly eroded in our society, particularly in the past 50 years or so. This erosion has not bypassed the medical profession, though I personally do think it has not penetrated it quite as far yet as it has other professions.

Given the above, your concern is a valid one.

I think probably the best way to guard against this is the same way that it is guarded against in other jury trials, including the military courts martial system, in which a “Jury of ones peers” is not synonymous with a “Jury of ones friends.”

There are almost a million physicians in the U.S.

Simply select a jury pool composed of physicians who are not acquainted with the accused. This would not be hard.

I currently practice on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This is a fairly low population density area where “everybody knows everybody else”, and yet there are hundreds upon hundreds of physicians within 50 miles of me whom I’ve never met or ever had any contact with.

Coming up with a jury composed of 9 or 12 local physicians whom I’ve never met and would share absolutely no sense of cronyism with, even ones in my particular specialty of family medicine, would be a piece of cake. I think it would be even easier in more heavily populated areas.

In extremely rural areas, the trial could simply be moved to another venue.

Alternatively, all trials could be held in the state capital, overseen by the state board of medical examiners, with a jury pool selected from an area of the state that is entirely different from where the accused is in practice.

Being a member of the potential jury pool for such courts could simply be made a condition of licensing for physicians, and during the jury selection phase, legal council for both sides would have the opportunity to question potential jurors to vet out potential conflicts of interest and excuse inappropriate jurors from the trial. Obviously any physician being less than honest during this vetting process (for the purpose of trying to get on the jury so he can practice some cronyism) would be exposing himself to criminal prosecution for perjury, the punishment for which should be extremely severe in my opinion in order to discourage this crime.

These are all just ideas off the top of my head.

In any case, I don’t think cronyism would be a particularly hard thing to guard against.

Hope this answers your question adequately. Let me know if not.

Cheers,

I thought they were actually pretty accurate, and for the most part, I agree with you.

All my ideas regarding health care reform, including my ideas on medical liability reform, are really just mental self-gratification.

As you’ve mentioned, they’d really have no chance of ever seeing the light of day in our age of corporate and political greed, all supported by voters with the attention span of a gnat and the maturity of children.

I like your analogy of physicians being the musicians on the Titanic. That is perhaps the best one I’ve seen.

I’d never run for office. I’m far too long-winded for our sound-bite society, and too politically incorrect as well.

I’d be a lot like a non-insane version of Ross Perot, but without any of his riches.

Still, if you can get my name on the ballots of all 50 states, I’ll make you my campaign manager!

Cheers,

I know it’s become somewhat cliche to say this, but the little bit of history I have studied leads me to conclude that ours is a nation in decline in much the same fashion as the ancient Roman Empire.

My fear is that just as the ancient western world was plunged into the terrible period of the dark ages after the fall of Rome, our modern western world may be headed for a similar ugly period.

It doesn’t have to be this way. That’s the sad part.

Sincerely,