Wouter Leclercq

A decade of litigation regarding surgical informed consent in the Netherlands 131 8 Table 8.3 Characteristics of SIC claims and MDB decisions (n = 314). No (%) Claims (n=245) MDB decisions (n=69) Patient Female 158 (64%) 42 (61%) Male 87 (36%) 27 (39%) Doctor Resident 209 (82%) 64 (93%) Medical specialist 36 (18%) 3 (7%) Role of IC in the complaint Main subject 95 (39%) 19 (28%) Minor subject 150 (61%) 50 (72%) Role of other aspects in the SIC process Unpleasant attitude of the doctor 27 (11%) 8 (12%) Insufficient documentation of SIC 38 (15%) 14 (20%) Lead time Mean 614 days* 895 days* Minimum 22 days 15 days Maximum 3553 days 3505 days SIC = surgical informed consent. * There is a significant difference (P=0.003) between the mean leadtime of claims and lawsuits. Legal outcome of malpractice claims and MDB decisions An overview of the legal outcome of claims and lawsuits concerning SIC is shown in Tables 8.6 and 8.7. In 25% (24/95) of the malpractice claims and 20% (14/69) of the MDB decisions the patient’s allegations were recognized. Our study shows that the accused doctors rarely agree that something went wrong with their SIC procedure. This difference in recognition of the patient’s complaint on SIC was significant between doctors and medical advisors (P=0.002) and between doctors and the MDB (P=0.013). In addition, the judgment of the medical advisors often differed from the final judgment of the lawyer of Medirisk (P=0.027). When the patient’s allegations involved insufficient documentation of SIC, the complaint on SIC was more often recognized as significant. This applied to both claims (P=0.001) and MDB decisions (P=0.005).