I know boop. May God bless you for what you have gone through and keep you safe so that you may continue the good you do.
I've had bad experiences with lawyers who tell me what "should have happened" when they weren't there. Sometimes really awful things happen in medicine and nobody can predict them.
I know this well too. Litigation is a poor way to reconstruct reality. I am not saying our system is a perfect one. But I am saying that it works best when it is given the chance to work. "Jury reform," as I have described it, is when the intelligent and successful serve on juries, rather than using their god given talent to think of ways to shirk service. With jurors like that, the "market" for bad cases (like quartz kidney stone) becomes all the more tight.
There will always be some "demand" for bad cases because people will always be unhappy about a service they received, even when you execute flawlessly. It takes time and effort to weed the garden of both disgruntaled patients and incompetent lawyers. So believe me I understand your frustration.
Take care my FRiend.
P.S. If you were Summoned to serve as a juror, would you think of ways to "get out of it"?
Thank you so much for the post. I doubt Iwo Jima will ever forgive me, but I know there are good people in law. I’ve been very lucky to call them friends. I’ve been soured by a couple of cases, but I guess it’s unfair to make a blanket condemnation of everyone in the profession. There are bad apples in my line as well. I’ve had to call out some of my collegues in some instances. That’s REALLY awkward. Doctors can’t stand condemnation or second guessing and I’ve nearly come to blows over it. One time my fellow resident almost defibrillated a patient who had a pulse, the nurses came to me because they knew it was wrong and I had to take over the code from him even though it was his case. Lets just say he wasn’t happy about that.
As for your question, I would serve on jury if asked, but usually I get excused from duty. Dentists can get an automatic exemption, but MDs do not. I’ve had to write the court a couple of times. The one time I was empaneled, the defense attorney saw I was a physician and used me as his first challenge (if that’s the right term) to take me off the jury.