Las Vegas Sun

November 29, 2009

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Letter: Panel has role in malpractice suits

Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2005 | 9:03 a.m.

Your Feb. 2 editorial about the suggestion of reinstituting the medical malpractice screening panel was blatantly partisan, misguided and misleading. You practically regurgitated all the deceptive arguments of the lawyers and gave no credence to any of the reasons cited by the doctors.

There is no truth to the often-repeated assertion that only a few bad doctors are sued for malpractice. I know of many excellent doctors being sued for taking care of seriously ill patients who had bad outcomes, precisely by the nature of their illness. What used to be a rewarding and challenging experience -- to see a dying patient get better -- has turned out to be the equivalent of Russian roulette for the doctors caring for the seriously ill.

True malpractice cases need to be compensated. But do not tell me that there are no frivolous malpractice cases that cannot be screened out by an independent panel.

CYRIAC C HEMPLAVIL, M.D.

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