Why do the best doctors get sued the most?

Sometimes, compassion can be the best medicine.

Who is more likely to get sued: the top doctors in the world or the worst doctors?

The answer is simple, right?

Well it turns out the greater the medical knowledge a doctor has, the more likely doc will get sued. Put another way, it’s the best doctors who are sued the most.

Amazing. The main reason we pick doctors is for their ability to cure us of our illnesses.

It is like the problem we encounter with our elected leaders. The best bills rarely get passed into law. The worst bills seem to pass regularly. And it seems like the worst elected leaders are often the ones who stay in office the longest.

Why is that?

But before we get into that, let’s get back to the best doctors getting sued. It is helpful to know the top three causes of death in the United States.

The leading cause of death is heart disease. No surprise.

The second is cancer. Makes sense.

The third is medical errors.

In other words, mistakes made by doctors now account for 10% of the deaths per year, according to Johns Hopkins University.

This is nothing new. In fact, there is a term for it from ancient Greek: iatrogenic. It means, “harm done by the healer.”

One of our best examples of iatrogenic failure happened on Dec. 14, 1799. Former President George Washington was nearly three years into retirement. He got sick with a runny nose, a cough and a sore throat. Doctors were called.

During the next several hours, three doctors would remove 2.5 quarts of blood – 40% of his body’s volume – in a process known as “blood letting.” It was an attempt to get all the “bad blood” out.

They painfully burned blisters into the back of Washington’s throat. There were also vinegar and sage gargles as well as an enema and induced vomiting.

With none of those treatments working, doctors applied blisters to his feet and legs.

Shockingly, George Washington died shortly after.

Leading the trio of physicians was Dr. James Craik. He was not trying to kill the Father of our Country. In fact, he was a personal friend and had been Washington’s physician and confidant for over 40 years.

That’s why minutes before his death, George Washington thanked Dr. Craik for his help.

It turns out George Washington’s encounter with iatrogenic care tells us a lot about why doctors are sued today. He thanked his physician for basically killing him. Doctors today are sued not for technical errors, but because of their bedside manner.

A groundbreaking study showed doctors with stronger interpersonal communication skills, and greater empathy, get sued at a much lower rate.

We don’t sue doctors when their skills are flawed, but rather when their personalities are. We forgive those we believe care about us.

Which makes sense. Nobody wants to get treatment from someone we believe doesn’t care about us.

In fact, I once stopped going to a bicycle shop that had great prices and fast turnarounds because a mechanic was condescending.

So back to legislation: Why does the best legislation get buried in subcommittee, while the worst bills get passed into law?

It’s instructive to see how bills get debated in committee.

Take the progressive tax last year: Conservatives discussed how much the bill was going to cost; how government hadn’t earned the right to more of our money.

And immediately, progressives used moral language: “This will help the poor and disadvantaged. It’s just a little money from the billionaires to help people struggling to find their next meal.”

Several of the people testifying started crying. They showed every person in the room how much they cared.

The conservative counterpunch is usually a quote from Friedrick Heyak or a lecture about Austrian economics. 

We had the right solution. They had the right emotion. And what happened?

The progressive tax passed out of the General Assembly with record numbers. It was blood-letting all over again. And nobody blamed the proponents, because they cared.

The lesson I learned is we need to reverse this mistake. We need to take a lesson from the doctors.

To get sued less, you need to show a better bedside manner. To pass more laws, and to change our state, we need to be moralists.

We need to show lawmakers, and our neighbors, how much we care. Once we do that, then we can start discussing the finer points of Ludwig von Mises.

When we discuss public policy, we need to start with the “why?” We need to lead with our hearts.

That is how the best bills will get passed into law.