Talk:Malpractice

Untitled

There are many types of malpractices.Malpractice is not only limited to any professionals, but some consumers also indulge in malpractice. A consumer of electricity is asked to enter in a contract for his requirement of load and say he signs a contract-load of 20 Horse-power. Now he connects 25 Horse-power load and runs his machinery. This may also be termed as malpractice. Though it is a breach of contract too.

In Re: Merge

I think all the other kinds of malpractice should be merged into malpractice since they really don't have a lot of information, and they all repeat the same basic tort principles. The only exception would be medical malpractice, which due to tort reform has plenty to deal with in its own article. Manney 17:23, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Fixing Serious Error

I am concerned by the transformation of this article from an informational piece to an advocacy piece, particularly where the source cited is 100% at odds with the changes made. Beyond correcting that misstatement, I tried to unweave the pro- and con- arguments about malpractice litigation from each other such that they made more sense, and toned down some of the anti-lawyer rhetoric that had been introduced into the article. hyperkik 21:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Your representation of the source is false. The article specifically finds that caps reduce infant mortality.

The other reform measures that have a consistently significant effect on infant mortality are non-economic damage caps. Interestingly, for whites, caps have no statistically significant effect, while for blacks, enacting caps reduces mortality by about 67 deaths per 100,000 births (Tables 7-10). This seven percent decrease is statistically significant.

FRCP11 03:37, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

No, it is you who are engaged in flagrant misrepresentation. The official abstract of the article, reproduced both within the article itself and on the page you link, contradicts you:

We provide empirical evidence that some malpractice reforms have helped states retain doctors while others have not. However, retention of doctors comes at a cost. We show that some malpractice law reforms have lowered the level of care provided, as indicated by an increase in infant mortality. This suggests that some of the tort reforms lead to worsening health outcomes.

Do you understand that plain language? If you don't, it says that while some tort reforms are associated with doctor retention, they are also associated with increased infant mortality and worsened patient care. Consistent with its conclusion the article explicitly states,

Regardless of race, we find that collateral source reform leads to a statistically significant increase in infant mortality regardless of whether state specific times trends are included

and also expresses,

Relating these results to the results in the previous section, it is interesting to note that non-economic damage caps consistently and significantly increase the number of physicians practicing in a state. This suggests that blacks might benefit significantly from the increased access and continuity of care occasioned by states attracting and retaining doctors through noneconomic damage caps, while both whites and blacks suffer due to a lower standard of care provided as a result of collateral source reform.

Blacks may benefit, but everybody's quality of care goes down. The article concludes from this data

In summary, these results show that collateral source reform leads to increased infant mortality. This change in the quality of care provided affects both white and black patients. However, reforms that increase the number of doctors practicing in a state (i.e., non-economic damages caps) have the potential to improve health outcomes for the blacks.

Do you understand the difference between the actual harm that is recognized and documented in the article, counterbalanced only by a hypothetical benefit for blacks? Your choice to clip out the only snippet which supports your claim, so as to advance an argument that is 100% at odds with the article's actual expression, is completely dishonest. Had you even read the abstract you would know that.

So are you going to fix your own mess, or make somebody else do it for you?hyperkik 16:56, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Do you not understand the difference between "collateral source doctrine" and "non-economic damages caps"? It's a mystery to me why you're quoting a discussion of the former to refute my accurate quotation of the study about the later question. I'm not sure how you conclude that higher-quality care results in a higher infant mortality rate. I'm going to ignore the inappropriate ad hominems, which do not belong on Wikipedia.FRCP11 02:06, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I've moved the entire discussion to medical malpractice. My interpretation of the Klick article is correct, but I've deleted it. -- FRCP11 12:07, 26 September 2005 (UTC)