Unlike all of the amateurs with their pet theories about why somebody would kill strangers, I offer no opinion. I don't know the guy. I would rather post about something else.
This post was prompted by this case in the UK: Fattest man in the world suing NHS for "letting me grow."
If a patient of mine got fat, or killed people, can I be called liable? I have been twice named in medical malpractice lawsuits. It is an appalling, demoralizing, painful, and time-consuming experience. It makes you want to quit medicine.
The first case was a teenaged gal who got herself knocked up. The claim by the teen and her anti-abortion parents was that, since she was an impulsive kid, it was my medical duty to make sure she used birth control. I had mentioned it to her, but I had not written that down in my deliberately-sketchy notes.
My second was a guy who cut his wrists in a suicide attempt (or gesture?). He and his wife and lawyer decided that they could make a case that I had prescribed an inadequate amount of antidepressants to prevent him from doing this. Even though the guy's main problem was a personality disorder, they found a psychopharmacologist to testify that the fellow's mood swings and tantrums represented Bipolar Disorder. He was wrong, but that didn't matter.
Both cases sued me to triple the max of my insurance. The first case was a charity treatment case, in a clinic to which I donate one day per week. I suspect they figured out on Google that my husband is a banker. Both plaintiffs lost in trial, but both experiences left me feeling dragged through a sewer, slimed. A trial lawyer can always find somebody to pay to say you did something wrong. In my field of work, everything is a judgement call, and there is rarely or never a right and wrong.
I had felt, with both patients, that I had had a good, constructive, and friendly relationship, and that I had helped them quite a bit. Interestingly, both sued me for their behavior and their behavioral choices, as if I were responsible for those - as if I were God.
Like most docs I know, I try to do the best that I can to help the people I see, but my powers are limited. Still, lawsuits are always in the back of every doctor's mind in the US. My guess is that about half of medical tests are done with lawsuits in mind (eg $700 CT scans for tension headaches). Lots of hungry, parasitical trial lawyers out there, and plenty of people who are willing to toss away a relationship with a doctor if they think they can hit the jackpot by doing so. They can always find another doctor (although few doctors are willing to see litigious patients. I will refuse to treat anyone who has sued a physician. In other ways too, I select the people that I am willing to help. It's my prerogative.).
The lesson: Evil lurks in human hearts. No doubt about it.
