Fear of medical malpractice suits has decreased autopsy rates (Medical Litigation News Volume 3, Issue 9) but has increased diagnostic testing. Both trends adversely affect patient care.
If more frequent autopsies would advance medical knowledge, surely more testing would improve patient care?
The problem is that all laboratory tests are imperfect to greater or lesser degree. If such testing is ordered to improve uncertainty of diagnosis based on competent clinical assessment, imperfections of the tests will usually be outweighed by benefit.
If, however, the clinical probability that a disease is present is either very high or very low, these false negative and false positive rates become very significant for the patient and frequently lead to inappropriate giving of potentially harmful therapy, or withholding of treatment which might have been beneficial[1].
The net result of compromising the patient's best interests with the physician's liability concerns is detriment to the patient. This effect is compounded by physicians' well-documented overestimates of their risks of liability. (Medical Litigation News Volume 3, Issue 7)
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