Reforming Medical Malpractice

Think about each of the following questions and respond not only to the question but also to what others are saying. The first question is opinion-based so that you can begin the discussion immediately without having completed all of your readings. As you progress, you will need to meaningfully apply the readings using APA 6 formatting for any citations. Medical malpractice is a form of negligence, which commonly occurs in the healthcare environment. Soberingly enough, medical negligence is also the third leading cause of death in America according to several recent studies (Journal of Patient Safety, 2013; The British Medical Journal, 2016). Over $3 billion dollars of medical malpractice payouts were made in 2012, which represents approximately one payout every 43 minutes (National Practitioner Data Base, 2012). Millions more in additional dollars are paid through the practice of defensive medicine, which is an attempt to prevent or defend against prospective litigation. Keeping this information in mind, our first opinion based question asks you to assess our tort law system: Do you think our tort law system has been effective in preventing future acts of medical malpractice? Why or why not? Our next questions will give you the opportunity to apply your readings from this week. Remember the ethical theories and principles we’ve learned about at the beginning of the course. We’ll continue our discussion by considering the below questions: Our readings discuss a number of purposes that our tort law system seeks to achieve. What purpose do you think is the most important? Why do you feel this purpose is the most important? Do you feel our tort law system effectively meets the purpose you’ve identified? Why or why not? One important purpose of our tort law system is to compensate those who’ve been injured. Who do you think should be responsible for providing this compensation? In compensating those who’ve been injured, fairness in the amount awarded has been a recurring issue. How should the amount of compensation be determined? Who do you think should play a role in deciding this? Our readings present a number of tort law reforms. Do you believe that any of these proposed tort reforms might improve our tort law system? If yes, choose and identify one tort law reform and present the reasons why you selected this reform.