Yale Professor Endorses Common Good Proposal "Expert Medical Courts: An Idea Whose Time has Come"
Charles J. Lockwood, MD
Contemporary OB/GYN, September 1, 2004 A recent editorial by Dr. Charles Lockwood, Chair of the Department of Obstetrics
and Gynecology at the Yale University School of Medicine, endorses Common Good's
proposal to create special health courts and calls on doctors to "rally behind
[the proposal] by joining and supporting Common Good."
Lockwood lists six key benefits that a health court would produce, including
"consistent judgments on standards of care by court appointed experts; accountability
for negligent and reckless providers; and powerful incentives for quality improvement
in medical systems."
Lockwood's endorsement was published in the September edition of Contemporary Ob/GYN, the leading publication in the ob/gyn field. Lockwood emphasizes the importance
of bringing reliable law to the medical field:
In these special health courts, full-time, dedicated judges would rule on issues
of medical liability, supplanting the unpredictable, inconsistent, random jury
decisions that now result in wildly discordant rulings from case to case.
In July, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who is also an M.D., called for the creation of special health courts. Lockwood writes:
Frist's proposal could not come too soon. In July, Massachusetts became the 20th
entry on the American Medical Association's list of states affected by the professional
liability insurance crisis. According to the Massachusetts Medical Society, in
that state jury awards over $2 million have jumped fourfold in the past 5 years,
and 64% of ob/gyns now report limiting the scope and/or nature of their practices
because they fear litigation.
Lockwood gives a six-point list of the advantages of a special health court system:
1. Consistent judgments on standards of care by court-appointed experts. ... [E]xperts would render opinions based on solid peer-reviewed evidence and
guidelines published by medical societies.
2. Truth seeking rather than adversarial confusion. Data would be gathered by the court's objective experts, not by plaintiff and
defense attorneys.
3. Rational and dispassionate settlements, based on true economic loss. ... Compensation would be uniform, fair and codified.
4. Accountability for negligent and reckless providers. The courts would work with state medical societies and specialty boards to ensure
that their members uphold the highest standards of professionalism. The specialty
boards would be given greater authority than existing state agencies for monitoring
physician performance and responding to substandard practice.
5. Powerful incentives for quality improvement in medical systems. Freed from potentially catastrophic, capricious, and unpredictable jury verdicts,
individual practitioners, health-care systems, and managed care plans could focus
on transparency in error reporting to reduce mistakes and enforce standards of
care.
6. Administrative efficiency and cost reductions. Our current litigation system returns 22 cents on the dollar to victims for
economic losses!
Read the full editorial. | 
