From Doctor to Lawyer: Why I'm Going to Law School

[Yeratyuu]

I am in the medical field, but have decided to quit my profession due to all frivolous lawsuit. I am sick & tired of having to think about getting sued 24/7 and ordering nonsense tests for every microscopic eventuality. I think the field of medicine is lost for American physicians and that patients are better off with foreign doctors willing to put up with all this crap.

Does anyone else here have background from honest work before deciding to become a lawyer? Would be nice to share experiences here.

So far my LSAT scores are around 155-170 on tests. I find LSAT WAY easier than when I took MCAT and I also intend to practice a bit on the side (moonlight) while I attend the school. Is it a smart thing to list medical degree as a credential, or should I just stick to my Bachelor's degree? Any input here would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks to all.

[alkagoevals]

I've spent 15 years as a Certified Medial Technologist (ASCP). I, too, plan to go to law school.And prior to becoming a med tech I've done plenty of "honest" jobs-everything from driving truck to the military, etc.

Your bitterness is sufficiently obvious that I can't believe you would be serious about becoming a lawyer. However, if you are you should continue to study for the LSAT. By the way, the MCAT is harder because almost everyone who is accepted into med school stays there and graduates as a doctor. The LSAT is somewhat easier because they expect a fair number of people to quit or get kicked out. With your viewpoint I would not be optomistic about your prospects.

Perhaps you could find an administrative post in medicine that would suit you and take you out of the front lines.

[joslynjaseiyx]

What you label as "bitterness" is harsh realities. I am also a doctor and I have been fortunate so far and avoided a suit, but still end up dishing out 20% of my salary to lawyers. This in addition to taxes makes me wonder if I live in the French Republic and not in USA, but that is another issue.

Since I am in a decent financial situation and my wife is also a doctor (she is not quitting-yet), I would just do these years and start as a tax evasion lawyer or something like that. I could probably make loads becoming a malpractice lawyer, being a board-certified specialist, but it would really disgust me if I sold my soul like that. Besides, life as a corporate tax/banking lawyer with offshore basis seems quite a cozy life compared to chasing ambulances and day&night. Most patients these days are also aware of these issues and I almost feel like I have to explain everything, not to mention run every single test for everything just to cover myself in a trial. Consider this case; A teenage girl comes and wants a prescription for Accutane. I tell he she has to get a pregnancy test done before she can have it, Accutane being a strong teratogen. Despite herself declaring she is not sexually active, I still have to request such a test in case she is not telling the truth.

End of case is the patient leaves, is offended and who knows; she might even sue me for harassment!!!

Such is the world of medicine in the US these days..

BTW, I just meant to explain my motivations fo a career change and nothing else. I don't care about the politics of this crap anymore since this is an issue that won't be solved whether Bush, Kerry or whoever it is stays in power. Then I'd better take a hint and follow the flock. It's not that the republicans don't want to do something, but they just don't have the power. And if they can't deal with this issue when they control the presidency, house,senate majority and Bill Frist himself a surgeon, then there is no hope.

I have no doubts I will be able to graduate from lawschool either. What finally convinced me to enter law school was that two other doctors I knew have done the same. They are both cardiothoracic surgeons making good money, but again, their premiums are astronomical. After hearing their stories about their time so far, I have no doubt I am doing the right thing. I did not enter the medical field to move papers around so an "administrative field" is out of the question. Leaving the medical field entirely is a much better option. Why stay and keep fighting a war you can't win? Even a family Physicians could now end up paying 45K annually and the rates skyrocket every year. One of them is now in the second year and have so far done very well with not to much effort. He is not going to practice at all next year. I intend to moonlight throughout my third year in low-risk medicine like prescribing Viagra and Proscar online. While not giving the big bucks it will be enough to finance the whole thing.

I went into medicine to save lives, ease sufferings and make a difference in peoples days. My piety has reached it's limits and I leave the field to others with a more stringent will to persevere and bend their necks to overlords.

[Lovertise]

I have a higher opinion of malpractice lawyers than you guys do.

First, I believe that the premiums have gone through the roof because of the insurance companies more than anything else.

The other thing is that I have personally witnessed (and in two cases) prevented patients (when I was a doc) from being killed by malpractice. The examples are so egregious you would not believe them, but I've seen them. Also, several very close calls in 15 years. There are at least 2 surgeons at our hospital I wouldn't let touch my dog, let alone patients. Because the patients never know how close they came to dying the whole business gets covered up. Someday one of these guys is going to kill someone.

On the other hand, I hear your pain about the ridiculousness of the situation. Don't even get me started on HIPAA and other crap like that. Good luck, sir.

[Pedesceri]

First of all, I have no problems with the reasons you guys are presenting as I am a doctor turning lawyer. Having figured the LSAT and knowing others in the legal field, I have no doubt I can finish any law school in any sense. If the statements from your Harvard friend was right, there was no point for anyone subject to ANY injustice to pursue a career of law to change the system. It is obvious that many lawyers think they belong to some kind of selective Platonic elite where anyone not conforming to their dogmatic abolutistic views are "unfit".

Secondly, being "married to a nurse" does not give you any more leverage in any arguments. For every nurse telling people how stupid and "quacky" a physician is, there are hundreds that can state the contrary. If your wife is more concerned about telling everybody how bad her coworkers are, then maybe the problem is not with the doctors, but with someone else..

The facts are very simple:

Trial lawyers rarely initiates any pursuits of administrative punishments against the doctors they assault on behalf of others. If they were so interested in getting rid of the "bad doctors" they would pursue this course.

Instead, these parasites (sorry, I meant attorneys), are only interested in bleeding the doctors and enriching themselves.

Therefore they come up with "punitive damages", again;if they wanted this doctor not to "hurt others" they would of course be more interested in taking their license away, right?

You say "a doctor Botches surgery" ?? Could you explain a bit more on this? Do you expect a surgery to run perfectly fine all the time? Do you expect high-risk medical proocedures like surgery to always go according to the plan? The problem with most lawyers that rant on about how bad all doctors are is that most of the same lawyers don't even know the difference between acidity and ascites.. The only thing they know how to do, is to put blame and cash in.

I am not a surgeon and therefore have nothing to say about this but, why should a "botched surgery" from another doctor affect MY protection money payments? Secondly, do you know that OB/GYN and other high-risk fileds like CT-surgery and Neurosurgery are fields where few medical students no consider? Even a doctor in Family medicine now can end op paying more than 40K in tribute to the lawyers, just so he wont get sued. the 1920's had Al Capone, in modern days we have trial lawyers, and they even do it legally. Talk about commiting the perfect crime.

You are calling doctors that get sued for "quacks", confirming your OWN literary quackery. The vast majority of doctors getting sued in the US are board-certified physicians with 3-5 years of postgraduate training after medical school. As a matter of fact, a doctor cannot even practice in most states without some postgraduate training. It takes 7 years to become a Neurosurgeon after medical school, yet every Neurosurgeon in states like Florida have had a at least 2 suits in the last 5 years. So your logic here is that the longer education, the more likely to become a "quack".

If the doctors getting sued (the quacks) typically occupy the most demanding field of medicine (and the most competitive out of medical school), could you explain me how the best doctors are the "quacks" here?

To me, the only quacks around are trial lawyers that sway jurys based on emotions, psychology and blind rhetorics rather than sound science.

One thing is for sure, the trial lawyers of the US are shivering with fear that the medicine should get socialized in this coutry. Ironic, isn't it?? These proponents and "protectors" of the common man would not want the common man to have free healthcare..

I am out of the medical field for good and have no regrets. I am looking forward to getting into a world where I don't have to worry every morning I am getting up, if any complaints were filed towards our hospital today?!

Your statement just confirms the sheer ignorance and oversimplification of many, but not all, lawyers that rely more upon blaming others for everything at any time than acting with professionality. Do you know how many trial lawyers that use insights from acting and drama to sway a jury?

It is something wrong when we live in a society where most doctors don't stop at the scene of a traffic accident in fear of getting sued if the "botch", unless they are Emergency physicians and therefore "acting within the field of practice".

[Wapypneully]

You imply that malpractice attorneys are to be reviled because they litigate against honest doctors and end up raising the costs for all. Although I disagree with this universal characterization I will not dispute it. Instead, I will turn your attention to your own words:

"I would just do these years and start as a tax evasion lawyer or something like that ... life as a corporate tax/banking lawyer with offshore basis seems quite a cozy life compared to chasing ambulances and day&night."

So, you wish to become a "tax evasion lawyer" and help U.S. corporations eschew their financial obligations to the citizenry by setting up phony offshore enterprises. Furthermore, you wish to do so not out of some high principle that this is the right thing to do but simply because you want "a cozy life".

Tell me exactly how you differ from the malpractice attorneys you so despise?

I believe I note in you what I have noticed in a few other doctors I have met - a belief that your profession is somehow markedly different in nature from every other profession on the planet and doctors should, in some sense, be worshiped and admired as a general rule. I think doctors tend to have a knee-jerk negative reaction to malpractice attorneys partly because they represent, to a certain degree, a break from the uniform unquestioned worship many doctors have come to expect.

Certainly you would agree that everyone should be held to a certain level of accountability in their profession. Certainly you would agree doctors should not be exempt in this regard. And certainly you would agree that we should not all trust doctors to police themselves.

Malpractice attorneys are the police force that keep doctors and hospitals in check. Is it a perfect system? No. Are there evil malpractice attorneys? Sure. And when you're ready to propose a real honest to gosh alternative that really is effective in policing the doctors i'm ready to listen.

We've all got issues with our former professions. Me - i've worked as a software developer for the past 7 years. I could sit down and female dog for hours about how unappreciated I am and how I don't make nearly the money I'm worth. You are not unique in that regard. Everyone feels jilted. Welcome to the club.

[TurkinBergs]

First, merely having a grievance with the legal system should not be a primary motivation for a law career.

The medical field is a very timely coordinated field where naysayers and people overconcerned of putting blame rather than doing their jobs are not wanted. Unfortunately, the oversimplifications of a nurse to a complex medical issue is common. While the vast majority of nurses realize that doctors face dozens of vital decisions every day, those few more concerned of putting blames than solving problems rarely fit in here. To take a parrallell example, what would a lawyer say if a paralegal at every moment were more focused about the lawyers mistakes than trying to solve problems?

Frankly, being a physician doesn't place a person in a particularly good position to judge the good or ill of malpractice suits since there is such a strong personal stake.

There are way to many doctors around the US and way to many different ways of medicine for this to happen. Trial lawyes LOVE to front this conspiraccy theory every time a doctor does not want to become an "expert vitness" for them in their quest to lauch their mostly frivolous suits.

So you think it is better that a trial lawyer expresses HIS "professional oppinions here"? The best way would be to use forensics pathologists here in a specialized medical court, but trial lawyers themselves are against this.. Why? Clearly this would srip them from their emotional-based rhetorics and place power into sound science instead.

No one is more against unlicensed physicians than the American Medical assiociation. A lawyer trying to imply that we don't remove quacks doesn't want to lead a fair debate here. Unfortunately, this is used all the time from trial lawyers to sway public opinion. What you "claim" is therefore hard to figure out.

The trial lawyer spends as little time as possible trying to discern factual guilt, but prefers to focus on the current state of the patient. It is obvious to any thinking educated person that cause and effect has to be proven before it is postulated, but to trial lawyers this connection is routinely ignored- AND WILLFULLY SO.

What I am suggesting is that doctors -- like other professions -- sometimes seem to protect their own, even in some cases to the detriment of their clients.

What I am suggesting is that when doctors as a group are more diligent in weeding out the incompentent they will be in a better position to seek and gain protection from frivilous or false lawsuits.

No professions integrity and rigorousness is more strongly scrutinized than a US physicians (and neither should it be).

It is a great call to be a physicians and not everybody has the moral, physical and ethical drive for this. the OVERWHEALMING majority of doctors getting sued have fullfilled all requirements the licensing boards have set. Having been sued can also hamper them from getting licensed in other states. Reciprocity is harder to get and leads to more scrutiny.

It is very simple, (although trial lawyers pretend it is not).

If a person heard a doctor was bad, would be prefer the doctor being stripped of his license or his insurance company dishing out millions to the trial lawyer that "found him to be a quack".?

I think you know the answer.

Not that trial lawyers do anything useful otherwise either. These are the same people that would sue McDonalds for people getting fat, sue cable companies for kids watching to much TV, sue public parks for people getting attacked by a goose there.

But as long as these bloodsuckers keep pouring money into the Democratic senators this net of special interest groups will stay afloat.

The losers are taxpayers, employees ans the ones that did not win in the lottery ticket.

[MypocoDic]

US doctors are held to the highest standrards in the world attracting thousands of foreigners trying to pass our exams every year. It says something about our supreme standards when 95% of Us doctors pass the board exams in first attempt, while less than half of foreign grauduates do the same.

Many doctors (especially in Florida) have no chosen not to pay any insurance and have transcribed their assets (i. e. house and money in the bank) to someone else and will simply quit if they get sued. If they kept paying the premiums they would in most cases be paying more in malpractice insurance than they received in salaries. Why?? because the suits have no gotten so bad that insurance premiums have increased by vast amounts since 1997.

Do lawyers ever get sued for bad practice? We all know the answer to this. Lawyers are rarely, if ever held accountable for their actions and they have the best defenses if they ever WERE to be held accontable for anything.

[NeksRoonofe]

Neurological malpractice:
Q: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
A: Yes.
Q: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
A: I forget.
Q: You forget. Can you give us an example of something that you've forgotten?

Malpractice-injury due to intoxication.
Q: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo or the occult?
A: We both do.
Q: Voodoo?
A: We do.
Q: You do?
A: Yes, voodoo.

Nursing home malpractice:
Q: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?

Q: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?

Q: Were you present when your picture was taken?

OB/GYN malpractice:
Q: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
A: Yes.
Q: And what were you doing at that time?

ANother OB/GYN malpractice:
Q: She had three children, right?
A: Yes.
Q: How many were boys?
A: None.
Q: Were there any girls?

Divorce suit:
Q: How was your first marriage terminated?
A: By death.
Q: And by whose death wasit terminated?


Pathology:
Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.

Another suit against a surgeon:
Q: All your responses must be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
A: Oral.

Pathology:
Q: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
Q: And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?
A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy.

Suit agains pathologist:
Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for breathing?
A: No.
Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
A: No.
Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
A: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practising law somewhere.

[floallexSaple]

Last month, a physician at a certain cardiac hospital cracked the patient's rib cage open like a lobster and began siphoning blood clots out of the pleural cavity from around the heart and lungs. There was much more clotting than he anticipated. In addition, severe bleeding re-ensued (a not unpredictable sequelae to such a procedure). The patient nearly bled to death because this physician did not even both to order a type and screen, let alone a 2 unit crossmatch prior to surgery, a precaution I think is OBVIOUSLY warranted for such a surgery. The patient had been in the hospital for 24 hrs so there was plenty of time for the routine pre-op. When the blood banker arrives outside surgery with 2 units of EMERGENCY UNCROSSMATCHED blood, and hears the surgeon saying, "Oh my God, this is bad, this is bad, Oh God" it is an indication that perhaps things aren't going so well. We managed not to kill her anyway. Two days later while I drew her blood for post-op labs, she was singing the praises to her family of how wonderful the surgeon was. She had no clue how close she came to dying.

[Rjvwzdtj]

I think MOST of us can agree that incompetent MDs need to be punished financially for making dumb mistakes... You have misplaced blame, doctor. You do not pay attorneys, you pay Insurance men. Having been in the insurance industry, I can tell you that it is a HUGE cash cow. Generally they assume what their claims will be, triple it for administrative expenses, and then set whatever profit margin they want. Yes they are regulated... but only to verify that they have set enough cash aside to pay expected claims. If you feel that you are competent to practice, and will not make any life altering mistakes, you can freely practice without malpractice insurance. In most states there is not requirement for it.

Just make sure that you protect your family assets, in case you DO make a stupid mistake.

[ScenSoroProoN]

A hospital where a physician gets sued does NOT fire him unless there are grounds for adminsitrative charges. These are of an entirely different character and while it HAS happened a doctor in a civili suit later has been striped of his license in administrative court , it is rare.

The civil attorneys do not want to do this. OF course their excuse is that they don't have the credentials to do so. Likewise, if every doctor fund guilty of "negigience" would lose his license to practice, entire states would end up without:

• Neurosurgeons
• OB/GYNS
• Family physicians del. babies in rural areas.
• Anasthesiologists
• CT-surgeons.
• (To take just a few).

Clearly this would create a medical crisis, but maybe this should be the natural action to do?

Again, the solution here should clearly be to link the civil suit to adminsittrative law. If a jury were to know that giving a lawyer money (and the plaintiff a piece) would also lead to the physician losing his license, I think they would think twice in 90% of suits.

[cagegrouradum]

There are incompetencies around in all fields and the majority of attorneys (just like doctors) are gifted and talented intellectuals in their field.

However, when it comes to trial lawyers, that are only intent on suing other doctors (Specialized in "medical malpractice" ) I have no quarter neither for their ethical, intellectual or in any other ways honest approach to fronting their own profession. Most drug dealers have more ethical integrity than these people, at least if they are only selling medical Marijuhana or other soft drugs, but that is another issue..

I DO consider lawyers to be (at most of the time) of a high intellectual and moral character, enugh said.

But when it comes to this issue I am a moderate. You have no idea how much doctors talk about trial lawyers and how many crazy stories I hear. A trial lawyer have sued a cardiolofgist for "buildup of acids" in an emergency case, when it was referred to ascites, a condition having nothing to do with acidity. The vast mmajority of medical malpractice cases do not focus on guilt, but rather on the sufferings of the patients, who nobody disputes their sufferings.

Imagine a criminal case where the relatives of the victim cited their sufferings in order to proves the accused's guilt. This is what happens in most trial cases against doctors.

I think we should be able to apporach this dialogue further from here with a more sound basis, having seen that you are inded willing to drop some biases and lead some serious talk.

Finally, I have NO concerns about my own motivations or my own desires to do this and neither do I for a second think I would have been capable of this, had "outrage" at trial lawyers been the only motivation. I could go on citing other reasons ranging from enforcing non-discriminatory standards, to preserving constituional principles. Law is the foundation of a civilization and not a sheer tool to further ones own cause.