Litigious patient fears overblown
16th October 2014
Fears that patients are increasingly suing doctors to win exorbitant payouts are overblown, according to an analysis of 25 years of Australian legal procedings.
Despite a few high-profile large payouts, mostly for birth-related claims, there is “nothing to suggest a real burst of litigiousness among patients”, says researcher Dr Wendy Bonython, a medical and biotechnology law academic at the University of Canberra.