Forum

Impressions of defensive medical practice and medical litigation among South African neurosurgeons

David Roytowski, Timothy R Smith, A Graham Fieggen, Allan Taylor

Abstract


From a litigation perspective, neurosurgery is considered a ‘super high-risk’ field, and this has been associated with rapidly increasing malpractice cover costs. In 2013 the annual Medical Protection Society fee for cover was R250 900. We wished to determine whether high malpractice cover was influencing how neurosurgeons managed patients. A 40-question online survey asking questions on defensive medicine was distributed to determine perceptions around liability risk and whether these influenced how patients were managed. Eighty-four per cent of respondents agreed that a medicolegal crisis existed, and over half (53.8%) had been sued for malpractice during their career. Altering practice behaviour to minimise the risk of a lawsuit is common. The increasing number of legal claims against respondents in this survey has resulted in most neurosurgeons practising defensive medicine. Arguably this will result in increased healthcare costs, inferior patient care and decreased access to skilled surgeons. 

Authors' affiliations

David Roytowski, Division of Neurosurgery, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Timothy R Smith, Department of Neurological Surgery at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, USA

A Graham Fieggen, Division of Neurosurgery, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Allan Taylor, Division of Neurosurgery, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Full Text

PDF (559KB) HTML

Keywords

Malpractice; Defensive practice; Litigation

Cite this article

South African Medical Journal 2014;104(11):736-738. DOI:10.7196/SAMJ.8336

Article History

Date submitted: 2014-04-15
Date published: 2014-07-01

Article Views

Abstract views: 2476
Full text views: 3807

Comments on this article

*Read our policy for posting comments here