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What types of doctors get sued the most?

On Behalf of | Jun 8, 2018 | Medical Malpractice

Some might say that getting sued for malpractice comes with the territory when you’re a doctor. That’s at least what American Medical Association (AMA) researchers found to be the case when they recently surveyed a random sampling of their physician members recently.

At least a third of those doctors surveyed reported having been sued for negligence at some point during their careers.

Researchers also found that the older a physician is, the more likely that it is that they’ve been sued. In fact, data collected shows that while only 8.2 percent of all doctors younger than 40 who were polled had been sued for medical malpractice, at least 49.2 percent of their colleagues age 55 or older had.

Data collected also shows that doctors working in obstetrics or gynecology or as general surgeons are three-and-a-half to four times more likely to be sued for malpractice than their colleagues working in a field such as psychiatry or pediatrics. Doctors working in those two fields have the lowest risk of being sued of all types of physicians.

The research also shows that the average medical malpractice case that was settled in the most recent 2015 reporting year was just over $54,000. That same year, over 68 percent of all medical negligence claims were dropped. Each cost as much as $30,000 in legal fees to defend.

Countless Americans are either misdiagnosed or fall victim to doctor’s errors each year in this country. Many of those victims will experience delayed treatment for their conditions or suffer unnecessarily as a result. If you’ve received inadequate care from your physician that has resulted in injury or other harm, then a New Haven medical malpractice attorney can advise you of your right to sue him or her for damages in your case.

Source: Insurance Journal, “For U.S. doctors, being sued is common ailment,” accessed June 08, 2018

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