Chapter 12 Medicolegal Issues in ERCP
It is in this environment of personal illness and fear, limited medical art and science, patient dissatisfaction, and legal avenues for redress that medicolegal issues arise. Especially in the United States, there was earlier a steady increase in the number of lawsuits filed for medical malpractice and in the size of awards granted for damages.1 However, a recent analysis of paid claims for all medical lawsuits showed that the number and size of awards had leveled off.2 Physicians and insurance companies generally blame unrealistic patient expectations, avaricious trial lawyers, and inappropriately high jury awards for the increased number of lawsuits, which in turn lead to high malpractice insurance rates, diminished access to certain types of medical care, and the costly practice of defensive medicine. Alternatively, attorneys and some patients blame true medical negligence, high medical costs, inadequate policing of incompetent physicians, and poor financial management by insurance companies for the worsening medicolegal climate.
How Often Are Gastroenterologists and Endoscopists Sued?
Gastroenterologists, like all physicians, have reason to be concerned about malpractice litigation. Specialties vary in their exposure. Analysis of the Physician Insurers Association of America (PIAA) database from 1985 to 2005 showed that only 1.8% of claims concerned gastroenterologists3 and that they ranked low in the scale of risk among specialties, 21st of 28.4 However, a recent comprehensive review of claims and outcomes from a large liability insurer over 24 years showed that gastroenterologists ranked much higher (5th out of 25).5 No fewer than 12% faced a claim every year; this was less than most surgical specialties but ahead of obstetrics and gynecology, surprisingly, and the authors calculate that by the age of 65 no fewer than 75% of physicians in the lowest risk specialties (and 99% in the highest) had faced a claim. It is reassuring that only 20% of claims result in a payment, and that, contrary to popular belief, the risk for all specialties has reduced somewhat in the last decade.
It might be thought that the unfortunate rise in the risk rankings for gastroenterologists is due to the increasing invasiveness of their practice. Paradoxically, while an analysis published 20 years ago6 found that errors in procedural performance were more common reasons for claims than cognitive errors, the reverse now appears to be the case.3 Thus gastroenterologists not only need to take care to do their procedures well, for appropriate indications, but also must be mindful every day of the legal risk in diagnostic interviews, evaluations, medication prescriptions, injections, vaccinations, as well as other forms of patient interactions involving themselves and their staff.
How Common Are Lawsuits Involving ERCP?
Because endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is one of the most technically difficult procedures performed by gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopists and because adverse events, sometimes severe, are more common than with other endoscopic procedures, ERCP might be expected to account for a disproportionate number of claims against gastroenterologists. However, the relative risk of litigation arising from ERCP was actually substantially less than for other procedure types in the United States, at least when reported in 1995.6 In a Canadian study, ERCP-related events accounted for only about 6% of GI-related legal actions from 1990 to 1997.7 This apparent discrepancy is probably due mainly to the huge difference in the relative number of procedures involved. By contrast, ERCP is the most common type of endoscopic procedure associated with lawsuits in Japan.8 A simple Google search for “ERCP lawsuits” provides plenty of interesting reading.
What Are The Key Legal Principles?
Elements of a Malpractice Case: The Principles of Tort Law
The most common form of a medical malpractice action falls under the principles of tort law, a “civil wrong” rather than a criminal action. Such civil wrongs are generally compensated by monetary redress. To succeed in a medical malpractice action, the plaintiff must prove four basic legal elements by a preponderance of evidence (the fact at issue is more probable than not) rather than proving beyond a reasonable doubt as in criminal actions.6,9 The four basic elements that must be proven are:
1. The physician owed a duty of care to the patient.
2. The physician breached that duty by violating the applicable standard of care.
3. The breach of duty caused an injury.
Standards of Care and Guidelines
The standard of care is a legal concept describing the duty that physicians must fulfill in their care of patients.6,9 A failure to practice within the standard of care is a breach of that duty, one of the four central elements of a malpractice case. The standard of care is usually established through expert testimony, published data, and accepted practice guidelines. Of these, the most important in court is expert testimony. Expert testimony seeks to establish a standard of care reflecting the practice that is customary among competent gastroenterologists in good professional standing who are practicing with reasonable diligence, and should reflect the current practice at the time of the injury. Simply stated, the standard of care is “good patient care.” It is not defined as optimal or best medical practice exhibited by only a few noted experts in the field but rather as what would be expected from a reasonable peer under the same circumstances. Defendants’ lawyers sometimes suggest that the standard of care is somehow different, or less onerous, in their local community, as opposed to the situation in the ivory towers in which many experts live. This is a slippery slope, best avoided. The standard of care is national, not local.
Guidelines
It might be tempting to assume that clinical guidelines would reduce malpractice risk by helping physicians understand a consensus of “good care,” but in reality they are more likely to be used in malpractice litigation by the plaintiff as evidence that the physician failed to meet the standard of care.9 However, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) guideline on the use of ERCP is not restrictive.10
Who May Be Liable?
While most medical malpractice actions are taken against an individual directly involved with an alleged wrongdoing, there is also a legal concept that allows liability to be extended beyond someone who directly caused an injury to persons on whose behalf that person may have acted. There are several circumstances in which vicarious liability may be invoked.11 Respondeat superior is the legal principle that holds a master responsible for the wrongdoings of his servants. These “master–servant” definitions have evolved to include employer–employee relationships, corporate agent relationships, and teacher–student relationships.9,12,13 These relationships may apply to preceptors, proctors, administrators, and employers. Such a concept allows blame to be shared among doctors, trainees, nurses, institutions, etc. and may provide additional financially responsible defendants, some with potentially greater resources than the original defendant, to share the liability for an injury.
Employer Liability
A physician may be held responsible for an adverse outcome attributable to substandard service by office staff such as violations in patient confidentiality, violations in sterile technique, or failure to provide appropriate training and supervision to ensure the proper functioning of office staff. This issue has become even more important recently with the increasing use of nonphysician providers in gastroenterology practices and ambulatory surgical centers.14
Hospital Liability
Hospitals may be held responsible for the mistakes of a hospital-based physician employed by that institution or for inadequate oversight provided by endoscopy unit or gastroenterology division directors. They may also incur vicarious liability for improperly privileging physicians who are inadequately trained to perform a certain service.12,15
Informed Consent
Medical malpractice actions most commonly involve the “tort of negligence,” wherein a physician is felt to have practiced below the standard of care (“breach of duty”). There is, however, a common and independent cause of malpractice action involving the failure to obtain informed consent.9,16–18 This is often a secondary allegation filed along with an allegation of practicing below the standard of care.
Theory of Informed Consent
The essential elements of informed consent include the following:
1. The nature and character of the proposed procedure, preferably in nontechnical terms.
2. The reason or indication for the procedure.
3. The likely benefits of the procedure.
4. The material risks and adverse events of the procedure, including their relative incidences and severities.
5. The alternatives to the procedure, including those that may be more or less hazardous than the one proposed, and the alternative of no treatment.
The consent process should also include an assessment of the individual’s competence to understand the information presented and the opportunity for patients to ask questions.
Material Risks
3. The probability that the risk may occur.
4. The timing of the risk, whether contemporaneous with the procedure, postprocedure, or delayed.
Deciding what material should be disclosed is often not easy. One authoritative text on informed consent states: “The physician must walk a fine line between providing pertinent risk information and overwhelming the patient with frightening statistics. Providing too much extraneous information may be as likely to impair informed decision making as providing too little.”18
Controversial Areas
The trend toward a patient-oriented standard of disclosure has allowed for a broader interpretation of the “material risks.” What a “reasonable patient would wish to know” in making an appropriate decision might now include pertinent disclosure of the experience level and personal adverse event history of the specific physician, rather than national averages, as well as any pertinent economic interests of the physician. This question of the endoscopist’s personal experience might be especially applicable to complicated endoscopic procedures such as ERCP. In a legal case involving difficult and risky brain surgery, a physician was found liable for not informing the patient regarding his lack of experience.17
Exceptions to Informed Consent
There are several exceptions to the informed consent process. These include the following:
1. Emergencies where the patient is incapacitated to a degree that consent cannot be obtained and delay would put the patient at risk.
2. Waiver of the right of self-determination, where the patient assigns that right to the physician.
3. Therapeutic privilege, where the physician believes that informed consent would be detrimental to the patient, usually in an emotional sense.
4. Legal mandate, whereby the court orders the patient to undergo medical therapy without the patient’s consent.
5. Incompetency, where the patient is unable to make a decision and that responsibility is given to the patient’s legal guardian.