EDITOR:
I read with distress the Notice of Suspension on page 31 of the Spring 2003 Bulletin,. Dr Rand’s membership in the AANS was suspended for a year for unprofessional testimony. At our business meeting in San Diego, another neurosurgeon was suspended for three months after the Professional Conduct Committee had suggested a six-month suspension.
I suggest that these sanctions are totally inadequate. Both of these neurosurgeons should not have been suspended but should have been permanently expelled from the AANS. Stewart Dunsker and Stan Pelofsky at the San Diego meeting described the crisis in medical liability that currently exists. Their solution is to attempt to get MICRA-style legislation passed at a federal level. This will help but will not resolve the problem.
The problem is not plaintiff lawyers. Plaintiff lawyers sue. That is what they do for a living. However, under our current system, they would not have any case were it not for the collusion of the expert medical witness.
Without that collusion, this entire wretched system would collapse and a rational, equitable, responsive system to compensate injured patients would have to be developed. It will never be developed if the expert plaintiff witness is allowed to testify and receive only a wrist-slapping suspension.
I applaud Dr. Dunsker and Dr. Pelofsky in their efforts and I have sent my $1,000 to Neurosurgeons to Preserve Health Care Access. However, I strongly feel that even if federal MICRA-style legislation is enacted, we are pushing the solution to this problem to our children’s generation.
I wrote an editorial in Surgical Neurology (28:320, 1987) in which I discussed my rationale and suggestions for dealing with the professional testifier. These people do not deserve to be members of our collegial organization. Let us expel them and not slap their wrists.
Stephen R. Freidberg, MD
Burlington, Mass.
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