In the aviation industry, lawsuits aren't necessary. If a pilot makes a serious enough mistake, he dies. If we executed doctors when their patients died, lawsuits would be the least of their concerns.
> If a pilot makes a mistake, he'll either die or lose his licence.
I have a private pilot license. This is not true at our level, and is very often not the case at the big companies. Everyone makes mistakes; firing all the mistake-makers would not end well.
One of the reasons aviation is so safe (excluding corporate coverups like what happened a couple of times with Boeing) is that there is an emphasis on learning and making sure that mistakes never happen again - to you or to other pilots.
One of the exams for the Light Aircraft Pilot License for sailplanes in Europe has the multiple-choice question "Why is safety improved by submitting an official report of safety-related incidents?", where one option is "because then we can revoke the licenses of unsafe pilots", and another is "because then we can collectively learn from dangerous situations". Spoiler alert, the latter is the correct answer.
I can't speak for professional aviation, but I would be very surprised if the safety ethos isn't similar. Ruining a career after a mistake only leads to covering up mistakes. Why the hell is this a systemic problem at all? It's obvious it won't work.
If anything that sounds like a great reason for a doctor to use an industry standard checklist. "See exhibit A, documenting that my client followed the proper procedures". Not that that necessarily sounds great for patients with legitimate suits but for doctors it sounds useful.
The solution may be found in the legal system and its corresponding arm, the malpractice insurers, if both were to mandate a minimal standard of care including the use of checklists.
I agree with the first part, but not with your conclusion.
There is way too much litigation. Hospitals and staff are using defensive legal strategies-- obscuring docs, discouraging internal (written) investigation, delaying urgent treatment with unneeded consultation (to get more signatures on a decision).
IMO, there should be legal protection against malpractice lawsuits. Increasing the attack surface will not help with the core problem:
Doctors are over-worked, they are human and they make mistakes. The solution is to either enforce work conditions for doctors (and people die) or accept those mistakes (and people don't get money when they are on the wrong side of statistics)
What purpose does suing anyone for anything serve?
I don’t see too many doctors demanding to become employees (with far less personal liability) instead of independent contractors as they usually are. Getting the best of both worlds is asking for a lot.
I didn't mean to say that they should be "untouchable". Only that they should be given some protection for some very human, systematic, (unavoidable?,) mitigating factors
