I was thinking about malpractice insurance today. Here’s what I think:

The degree of risk associated with a specific medical procedure is based on the skill of the person doing it, the physiological situation of the person upon whom the procedure is being done, and some degree of luck on the part of the person doing the procedure and the person upon whom it is done.

Some procedues have bad results.

Some bad results are the result of error, incompetence, bad luck, unreasonable expectations on the part of either the doctor and/or the client, or some combination of the above.

Unreasonable expectations occur because the client did not understand the concept of ‘probability of success’, or because the doctor was wrong about the probability of success, or because the client didn’t understand what ‘success’ meant.

Some competent doctors make mistakes. Some mistakes affect the outcome of the procedure, and some do not.

Some doctors are incompetent to perform a specific medical procedure.

Some lawyers are greedy or unscrupulous.

Some clients believe that they are entitled to compensation for bad results. Some of them are correct.

Bad results that are primarily because the person doing the procedure screwed up should result in compensation to the client.

It's usually a judgement call whether bad results are due to error.

Hospitals and doctors will not admit error or bad luck because they beleive that to do so would place them in a weak legal position should they be sued.

Clients sue because they feel that they have no alternative, or because they believe that they are due more compensation and/or understanding as a result of a bad result than they have received prior to the point of submitting the lawsuit.