More than three fourths (77%) of surgeons report being named in a malpractice lawsuit, according to the Medscape Surgeon Malpractice Report 2021.
General and plastic surgeons tied as the specialists most likely to be sued (both 83%), and specialized surgeons ranked sixth among all specialties, with 74% reporting at least one lawsuit during their career. The top reason for being sued was complications from treatment/surgery (65%), a percentage more than twice that of physicians overall (29%).
This new report was compiled from an online survey including more than 4300 physicians from 29 specialties. The survey was available from May 21 to August 28, 2021, and included 382 general, specialized, and transplant surgeons. More than four fifths of respondents (82%) were male and 58% had practiced surgery for more than 25 years. Over half (57%) were aged 60 years or older, and 25% reported being at least years old.
The second most common reason for being sued among surgeons was poor outcome/disease progression (21%), followed by wrongful death (17%), failure to diagnosis/delayed diagnosis (16%), failure to treat/delayed treatment (16%), and abnormal injury to the patient (15%).
One third of surgeons (33%) said they paid $30,000 or more in malpractice insurance every year, compared with just 4% of primary care physicians and 11% of other specialists.
