Personal Injury Law

Debunking the Misleading Claims About Doctors in Illinois

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

The President of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association recently sent a letter to the editor that was published in the Quad Cities Dispatch. The crux of the letter was an attempt to set the record straight about recent claims being pushed by the Illinois Medical Society?the lobbying arm of doctors in the state.

The group attempted to use a self-created survey to claim that new graduating doctors from Illinois medical schools were fleeing the state because of malpractice lawsuits. The reality is much different. Even the survey itself admits that many Illinois markets, including Chicago, are ?oversaturated? with doctors. That means that the area has more doctors than is otherwise needed based on the population. No honest claims can be made about doctor shortages.

Those doctors who leave the state are shown to be motivated by two factors: job opportunities and to fulfill prior plans. In other words, the fear of malpractice liability in Illinois specifically is of little to no consequence. Instead, as one would expect, the new graduates leave the state to locations where jobs are more promising because there is not oversaturation. Alternatively, many new doctors never intended to practice in Illinois.

The facts are simple. The number of doctors in Illinois has been increasing steadily in recent years. It has never declined in the last 45 years.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on January 04, 2011 (boomark / email).