BMJ  2005;330:E342 (19 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7492.E342

BMJ USA: review

SOUNDINGS

Sued's corner

Serving hot coffee without warning of the risks attracts litigation. It follows that the best defense against liability is to assume that everyone is a moron.

Aircraft makers and airlines are also liable if their products fall down. They may be able to protect themselves by displaying audiovisual messages, indicating that airplanes are known to crash and that air travel is dangerous.

The makers of all products and the providers of all services are obliged to warn the public of possible mishaps: the medical profession should follow suit. Surgeons should protect themselves against being sued by making patients sign a consent form in which it is clearly stated that the patient understands, along with the other risks, that the operation may be unnecessary and could be poorly performed.

Similarly, doctors would be well advised to mount placards in their waiting rooms: "In medical practice errors of omission as well as commission are common and unavoidable. Sometimes the consequences lead to permanent disability, if not death. Patients who seek treatment here are assumed to have waived all claims."

It would also be advisable for those in the information business and those in the arts and entertainment worlds to get subscribers and audiences to sign waivers. Without such measures artists might be sued for offending taste and causing anguish, spatial disorientation, dizziness, and palpitations.

Medical journals are particularly vulnerable, especially when they publish evidence and guidelines. Doctors might seek to deflect blame from themselves and incite patients who have been the victims of bad advice to sue a journal over its evidence rather than sue an individual practitioner.

Doctors might also begin suing journals if the journals question prejudices, ideologies, and habits, for this kind of haranguing is known to cause chronic fatigue and post-traumatic stress syndrome.

The suing of schools and teachers will come naturally. For if parents can sue an obstetrician alleging that the stupidity of their offspring is his or her fault, it will be easy to lay a similar charge against teachers.

Eventually people will be able to demand compensation from their parents for the inheritance of undesirable genes.

---

Nairobi Hospital Proceedings, Kenya