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Lawmakers Hear from Malpractice Victims

October 15, 2004
Doctors and lawyers in Maryland have been outspoken in the state's debate over malpractice litigation, arguing over whether to curb jury awards. But victims shared the spotlight at a legislative hearing earlier this month.

George Osgood told the panel that his 19-year-old son, Michael, came down with a cold and a sore throat while home on a Christmas holiday in 2002. After a brief exam, a doctor prescribed several drugs for the engineering major, including 80-milligram tablets of OxyContin. Michael Osgood went into cardiac arrest and soon was dead.

"He was my best friend, my buddy, my fishing companion," George Osgood said. "My wife and I will never overcome the death of our son." He said the drug never should have been prescribed for his son's condition.

Osgood recently won a $950,000 settlement from the doctor's insurance carrier but he said the Maryland Board of Physicians has not taken disciplinary action against the doctor.

Not the Lottery

"It's not like you get some windfall; you don't win a lottery," said Bonnie McGurn, who testified that her 12-year-old son, Kevin, had cerebral palsy as a result of a medical error during his birth. The case was settled for an undisclosed sum, but the consequences will be with the family members for the rest of their lives, she said.

Doctors and hospital administrators testified that rising malpractice insurance rates are discouraging young people from going into the profession and causing doctors, particularly those in high-risk specialties, to retire prematurely. Their departure, several doctors argued, could hurt patients as well.

Some lawmakers want to call a special session of the General Assembly to head off another round of rate increases scheduled to take effect in January. Medical Mutual Liability Insurance Society of Maryland, which provides coverage to more than three-fourths of the state's physicians in private practice, is raising rates by 33 percent next year, after a 28 percent increase this year.

The insurance firm declined to respond to some questions that the special Senate panel submitted in writing before yesterday's hearing. One proposal would create a state fund that effectively would allow Med Mutual and other insurers to freeze their rates, but others say that such a fund should be tied to more substantive reforms in the legal system and new steps to ensure patients' safety.

There is no consensus, however, on what those steps should be. Several family members of victims criticized an approach that would have limited payouts to plaintiffs in malpractice cases, including a reduced cap on awards for so-called non-economic damages, generally referred to as "pain and suffering."

"People need to be accountable and usually . . . that means in the pocket, where it hurts," said Marie Owens, who offered testimony about her brother, Melvin, 24, who cannot speak or walk because of a medical error at birth, she said.

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