h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello to everyone out there on H2G2. I have a question I'd like to pose, it'll take a while to explain, so please bear with me.

I'm a 15 year old in England, and on the night of the 2nd October I was watching the film Patch Adams with my family. For those who have not seen it, the film is about an American doctor who rebels against the rigid and humourless medical system as he tries to complete medical school with the maximum of fun. He has a dream of setting up a hospital where patients are entertained and have a high quality of life.

One feature of this hospital was that it had no malpractice insurance. After the film, I asked my parents about this. They told me about a friend of theirs, a man who lived in America for a time who was a doctor. One day, he was on a British Airways plane bound for England, but still on American soil when one of the passengers had a heart attack. The cabin crew put forward a request for any doctors to come forward, but he did not. The reason was simple :the medical union forbids doctors to treat patients on foreign soil. The crew looked down the crew list and saw the prefix of Dr. before this mans name, so they asked him if he was a doctor. He could not bring himself to lie and said that yes he was. He went forward to look at the man, but he had already died.

If he had gone earlier, the man might have lived. If he had lived, my parents friend would have been praised. If he had died though, there would have been a very real risk of a lawsuit against him, the costs of which the medical union would have to have paid. Hence the fact that he was forbidden to treat patients abroad.

I was told that in America, it is common practice to sue anybody for anything, often for large sums of money. People will sue doctors if their patients die, even when it is obvious that the doctor is competent and did everything they could to try and save them. This means that money is spent, not on cures for patients, but to protect against vindictive members of the public. I was also told that the same was beginning to happen in the UK.

My question is simple :I don't want England to end up like America, where doctors have to live in fear of finding themselves in the dock. Why should life be this way and how could this could be prevented? Perhaps restrictions on lawsuits against civil servants etc. might be the answer.

Thanks, Tweedle Dee.

America is certainly a bit lawsuit happy and there are several reasons for this. One aspect of America being a capitalist society, is that we have it pounded into our heads from birth that having a lot of money is important, as well as having the biggest house, the nicest car, the fanciest gadgets, etc. Unfortunately, the jobs of many americans simply cannot support anything approaching this kind of lifestyle. Consequently, the vast majority of the population is looking for ways to get rich quick, preferably with minimal effort. One way to do this, is to successfully sue someone. There are enough lawsuits, that the demand for lawyers grew a great deal. Lawyer being one of the professions that often can afford the "american lifestyle" we suddenly ended up with a lot of lawyers, all of whom then encouraged people to file lawsuits for whatever reasons they could come up with.
Americans will file suit over anything, and people with money will got to extreme measures to protect themselves from being sued. Crosswalk signs in america actually have instructions on them, to prevent someone from sueing the city if they get hit by a car while jaywalking, by claiming that they didn't know that "DON'T WALK" means "Don't Walk". The reason that lawsuits are so prevalent in america, is that, in such a case, they would probably win.
How can your prevent this in Britain? Tough question. Keep the standards to practice law high, so only the dedicated can be lawyers, don't let greed become a dominant factor in your society, and stigmatize people who file petty lawsuits.
These are pretty tall orders obviously, but they might help slow the process.
Sorry for such a long reply, but I hope my answers were helpful

Thanks, it was helpful.

Tweedle Dee

Lawsuit happy is an understatement, the US has more lawyers than the rest of the world cobined. There is one lawsuit for every two and a half people in the US every year. Lawyers freely advertise on TV (Usually to the effect of "Hi, I'm Vinny Slick of Slick and Greasy Lawyers inc. if you've been in an accident, been recently offended, or just feel like pocketing some extra dosh, call us and we'll find sombody to sue") and despite it all, they seem to make a potload of money so despite my objections, I think I want to join their ranks. (Somebody HELP! I'm losing it!!) Doubtless you've heard some of the dumb things people have sued (and won) over (lady is driving while holding hot cup of coffee between her legs, burns herself, and sues the coffee makers) and seen ridiculous warning labels (see the I.C.A.R.U.S. Site) but I think a lot of smarter people are Causing accidents to themselves in order to file lawsuits and get rich easy.

Thank you for your attention,
Lord Xeen

Tweedle Dee, the original poster, is by now 35. They probably know by now, but...

"I don't want England to end up like America"

Neither do most people, but unfortunately our Prime Minister was born there and absolutely does want it to, so it looks like there's little we can do.

"Why should life be this way "

Because people are terrible.

"how could this could be prevented?"

The root cause is capitalism, so... revolution?

"Perhaps restrictions on lawsuits against civil servants etc. might be the answer"

Absolutely not. Worst idea ever. People absolutely should be held to account for their actions... to a reasonable degree. But suing doctors is not reasonable. There are mechanisms for dealing with doctors who traduce the profession.

Entertainingly, the most obvious example I can think of is former doctor Andrew Wakefield, he of the "vaccines cause autism" lie. He was struck off. What happened to him? He went to (where else?) America, where there is a ready supply of dolts prepared to pay him to tell them what they want to hear. It does make you wonder why nobody has sued HIM, for the death of their child from measles, say, but then people hate to admit they're wrong.

Can we sue the lawyers for undermining the global economy?

It's probably hard to find a lawyer for that, especially since the accused are all lawyers themselves.

"Can we sue the lawyers[...]?"

This is one of those times when it's appropriate to quote Douglas Adams: you might as well attack a lunatic asylum with a banana.

It might be better to eat the banana instead. This could be analogue to stop sueing and get the lawyers out of work. Although I expect that if you managed to do that in an organised way, you would be the first to get sued over it (probably pro bono).