Med Mal

Our daily schedule varies in terms of what/when we have classes, but there is a standard lunch hour. Knowing this, a lot of organizations have meetings, lunches, and events during this hour. The other week I was fortunate enough to 1.) be in class and 2.) actually read the chalkboards' listing of events. One of the talks I noticed was a medical malpractice one.

The talk was put on by a higher-up in anesthesiology, pediatrics, and patient safety/risk management...an M.D./J.D. I'm just gonna throw out some random bits that I can remember from the talk.

• In Cook County, med mal is a $1 billion dollar business.
• The two most expensive counties in the country to practice medicine are Miami-Dade and Cook County.
• The average Illinois malpractice premium for family practice is $30,000. Head an hour southeast to Indiana and you're looking at $4000.
• Neurosurgery malpractice carries an 8x higher premium compared to FP...making it an average of $240,000.
  
• Nine percent of physicians account for 50% of patient complaints.
• As UIC medical students, we carry $65 million in coverage. (!)

Obviously, I don't have any references or credible sources other than this guy's mouth. But, it still got my attention and was probably one of the better hours I've spent in a classroom this year.