MedMal Notes: Doctor Depo Problems

During deposition, defendant doctors often fall victim to plaintiff counsel’s attempts to badger them into becoming defensive and argumentative, thereby turning Marcus Welby, M.D., into someone closer to Dr. Hannibal Lecter.  This outcome is usually unnecessary.

Doctors who are inexperienced or uncomfortable testifying need to understand that opposing counsel is merely playing a word game with them and that they can take a lot of control back from the attorney (a concept that should appeal to most physicians) if they simply learn the  rules of the game, and devote some time to practice sessions before being deposed.  With a better deposition performance, they will spare themselves some uncomfortable time during trial by minimizing the need to explain poor deposition answers, and they will also give themselves more time to testify on the defense case themes.  

Juror Perceptions of Hospitals: For-Profit vs. Non-Profit

Unfortunately for non-profits, jurors in med mal cases are just as critical of them as they are their for-profit cousins and don't perceive non-profits as any more caring, or any less greedy.

Jurors are also generally unmoved by a university affiliation or whether a facility is a teaching hospital and do not credit defendants with being better corporate citizens just because they care for under-served areas or populations.

Med mal jurors usually spend considerable time focusing on the knowledge differential--and therefore the inherent power differential--between the physician (or other medical professional) and the patient, and their analysis isn't affected by what corporate structure the defendant operates under.

In fact, in some cases a teaching hospital can actually face an additional burden in proving it met the standard of care if a resident physician (sometimes called a "trainee doctor") was a prominent treater.

Sad perhaps, but true. So don't expect any bonus points from jurors just because your hospital doesn't have shareholders.