Doctors and Malpractice

Ran across this article in the news this morning that a court found a doctor liable for malpractice for leaving a needle in a patient.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050721/D8BFIGF00.html

now in the doc's defense he did attempt to call in another doctor and they both spent time trying to find the needle. That's the good news.....

My attitude as a whole though is that there shouldn't have to have been a trial. The doctor is negligent and is liable when they lose instruments in a patient. I mean this is not the first case of this type of thing. If nothing else, close the patient up and then do x-rays to find the METAL object.

I do believe that as a whole, people are sue happy. Get all the money you do not deserve. But of course in some cases, my attitude is go get 'em where it is OBVIOUS that there is a screw-up. You really have to love that our country sues for everything, gets everyone overly nervous and then when it is something important, just goes...."ahh, let the lawyers fight it out and they'll take 50% of the money".

We really need to start taking responsibility for our actions and stop blaming others. We also need to settle things fairly without always going "you owe me millions of dollars to make me happy".