This Is Not Good

On Dec 10th, a state Supreme Judicial Court in Mass ruled that a doctor can be sued over a car accident caused by his patient while driving since that doctor prescribed numerous medications to the driver. Some of those meds included narcotics. The patient hit and killed a 10-year-old boy after he fell asleep at the wheel. The mother of the boy alleges that the doctor failed to warn his patient about the side effects of the medication and the potential danger of driving while taking them. This ruling greatly expands the potential liability for the medical profession. This is all described in detail in a recent Boston Globe where Justice Roderick L. Ireland ”compared a doctor who fails to warn a patient about a drug's side effects that could endanger others to a bartender who serves a drunk customer” . What is even worse is that this is Massachusetts’s highest court making this ruling.

These are very scary times for doctors. Now we are accountable for every possible scenario that can happen from taking a medication. The patient who fell asleep had been taking multiple meds, many of which can cause drowsiness, and hadn’t reported any side effects in the months before his accident. The article went on to say that the two dissenting justices “worried the ruling would drive up medical malpractice rates”. You think? Forget the fact that recent studies show that long term use of narcotics does not impair driving ability. I mean who needs science? Let’s just keep suing and pick up the pieces later.