Suitable Behavior: What to Do When Being Sued
by Neil Osterweil
WebMD Medical News
Harold J. Bursztajn, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and co-director
of the program on psychiatry and the law at Harvard Medical School in Boston,
tells WebMD that when a physician is served notice of a suit, "the first thing
is not to take it personally. Try to understand what happened, see it in terms
of a process of dispute resolution, continue to maintain a professional perspective,
and respect the truth."
"It's important to keep in mind that there's a difference between making an error
and being negligent," Bursztajn emphasizes. "But if you have in fact made an
error that amounts to negligence, that doesn't mean you're the world's worst
doctor, by any stretch of the imagination, or a bad doctor in general. One can
learn from one's errors, even those errors which amount to being negligent."
