Guest Author
I have held a Florida medical license since 1997. When you look me up in Florida’s Practitioner Database, it will show that I’ve never been sued. Does that make me a good doctor?
Are you sure about that?
There was a surgeon in Destin who recently took out a patient’s liver instead of his spleen, killing him instantly. Guess what? Under a quirk of Florida law, if that doctor’s victim were over 25 and unmarried with no children under 25, that surgeon’s record would look as spotless as mine. How could that be?
The Legislature, in their infinite wisdom, created a statute in the 1990s — at the height of a malpractice crisis — that stripped legal rights from a large swath of Floridians, most of whom are oblivious to this language. Under current law, if a bad doctor kills a patient who is over 25, unmarried and has no children under 25, that doctor cannot be sued for noneconomic damages in a wrongful death case. We are the only state in America with this absurd provision.
Advocates mockingly refer to it as the “free kill” statute. HB 6017, championed by Rep. Dana Trabulsy, is a simple bill that repeals this ridiculous and unjust statute, providing fairness across the board to all families and patients in the state.
But this bill isn’t just about fairness, it’s also about protecting patients. Whether we like it or not, we physicians are judged by our track record and malpractice history.
The state of Florida publishes every physician’s record on a searchable Practitioner database that lists every paid malpractice claim over $100,000 for the last 10 years. If a bad surgeon can kill a 26-year-old bachelor and not be sued for it, what’s the point of the database? The incompetent provider’s record will appear to be as clean as the most skilled surgeon’s. And therein lies the problem.
Good doctors are not afraid of repealing the statute. In fact, good doctors, like the ones who testified in favor of HB 6017, are sick and tired of seeing the incompetent ones skate by on a technicality. These substandard practitioners stain all of our reputations, and they do not deserve the right to practice in our beloved state.
So who opposes this bill? Insurance companies, of course, but also the very hospitals and corporations that employ substandard practitioners. These entities cannot be trusted to self-police the situation. The Destin surgeon reportedly had yet another past incident that was not litigated. It did not stop someone from hiring him, nor did it stop a company from insuring him. Nor did a prior misdeed keep him from killing another patient. In the name of patient safety, give every patient in Florida the right to hold their physician accountable for their actions.
In the name of freedom and fairness, let’s eliminate this horrible modern-day Dred Scott statute that assigns value to some patients’ lives while devaluing the lives of others. The life this bill saves could be your own.
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Dr. Joel Rudman is a former member of the Florida House.
