A law school educator has called for an end to what he termed "professional courtesy," wherein medical doctors refuse to testify against others in courts of law in malpractice suits.
Speaking to students of Lou-11 isiana State University School "of "Medicine, Dr. Paul M. Hebert of Baton Rouge, dean of the LSU School of Law, termed "professional courtesy" a dangerous trend.
Often, he said, "a hapless plaintiff is unable to get the necessary expert medical testimony to prove his case in a medical malpractice suit."
Dean Hebert delivered the annual lecture of Alpha Omega Alpha, LSU honor medical fraternity, stressing that recent studies have shown one out of seven practicing physicians in the U.S. has been sued for malpractice at least once during his career.
"It can be seen that the risk to the doctor from a financial
viewpoint is very great in an era of verdicts running into six figures," he said.
Important as this, is, the trend to "professional courtesy" in the law must be reversed, he said.
The courts, he said, have been
encouraged by the trend to resort to an extension of legal doctrines such as "res ipsa loquitur" (the thing speaks for itself) as a means of balancing the scales of justice to provide for persons injured through medical negligence.
'In the process, however, your great profession is placed in jeopardy and exposed to widespread condemnation in a rising tide of litigation, which in many cases is unmerited, if the medical truth were known to the jury," he told the future physicians.
