Personal Injury Law

Obama on Medical Malpractice: Let Doctors be Doctors

By mbrickley

President Barak Obama returned to his home city this week - Chicago, Ill. - to address the American Medical Association on the topic of health care reform.

Obama wants to let doctors do what they are trained to do and be doctors - not bureaucratic businessmen that are constantly thinking about money making and worried about lawsuits.

According to a CNN report, Obama said the current health care model focuses more on the quantity of heath care patients received rather than the quality of care. Obama said to his audience of physicians that this model “pushes you, the doctor, to see more and more patients even if you can’t spend much time with each; and gives you every incentive to order that extra MRI or EKG, even if it’s not truly necessary.  It is a model that has taken the pursuit of medicine from a profession — a calling — to a business.”

According to Obama’s speech, the extra tests and scans called for by doctors are often unnecessary precautions, used by doctors to lessen the risk of a medical malpractice lawsuit.

If the system is reformed in the manner that Obama is proposing, there would be protection for doctors, allowing them to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.

Obama did say he does not want to put a cap on medical malpractice lawsuits, but he wants to make sure that patient safety comes first and allow doctors to be the “healers” they are meant to be.

So what does that mean for the health care system of America? Obama is still making his case for universal care - a topic on which doctors are still torn.

The President was very well received by the audience of doctors at the AMA in Chicago, but I think some of the country’s health care professionals are still wary of the changes that might be coming their way.

Full post as published by The Injury Blog on June 16, 2009 (boomark / email).