Letter: One case can end a doctor’s career

Monday, July 15, 2002 | 8:44 a.m.

Doctors did not go through a rigorous and time-consuming process over several years to stop practicing their profession for political reasons. But they cannot be foolish and risk everything they worked for just because their best effort to save a seriously injured person did not succeed.

In spite of their best efforts, patients do die. Most people are happy with their medical care. But it takes only one unhappy person to ruin a doctor's reputation and to make him wonder if it is worth it.

Even a frivolous lawsuit will cost him money, time and emotional distress. A lawyer will not stop suing a doctor just because 10,000 patients were well served by him. The lawyer is unlikely to consider the benefits to those 10,000 patients. Of course, they have a whole different set of priorities and considerations. They have to protect the public from this danger to society (so they claim).

CYRIAC CHEMPLAVIL Editor's note: The writer is a medical doctor.

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