On more than one occasion I've picked up the phone only to hear an enraged male threatening to kill the doctor that crippled him.  I may have saved the life of more than one negligent/criminal physician.  I understand these peoples desire for retribution, vengance or justice.  When we spend our lives as law abiding citizens, believing in the system only to find that we can be assaulted, confined, tortured or have our loved ones murdered and killed with no accountability we loose faith. Medical consumers know that the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Geneva Convention etc… mean nothing unless you can find an attorney and buy your rights and Justice. 

Is there an answer? There is not going to be any one solution, but VJC Inc believes that applying as many of the Restorative Justice Principals as possible will only be beneficial. The Victims Justice Center Inc has put together a committee of attorneys, victim's advocates, doctors and nurses to discuss the application of Restorative Justice to medical malpractice. 

To be simplistic Restorative Justice is based on the principals of restoration and restitution as opposed to retribution.  The focus of Restorative Justice is to encourage restitution, understanding and prevention without an adversarial approach.  This means that the victim would need to put aside feelings of vengeance and the doctor would need to put aside self righteousness and take responsibility for the error.  This also means that many cases could be mediated and would be handled as other victim/offender mediations in cases of severe violence are handled.

Some benefits of applying Restorative Justice Principals to medical malpractice may be:

For the victim:

The adversarial approach is eliminated

Focus moves to restitution so the victim can focus on recovery

Allow the victim to procure needed services i.e.. medical care, counseling etc…

Remove the stigma of treating victims

Most victims that contact us and that participated in the Harvard Study say that initially they just wanted honest answers.  They wanted to know what happened and some wanted an apology.  Contrary to the picture painted of these victims by tort reformists their primary concern is not usually money.  Mediation will provide victims/survivors the answers and apologies they seek.

Restitution can be agreed upon when there is loss of income, loss of life, severe injury or severe misconduct.

Mediation will allow the victim/survivor the opportunity to tell the doctor how their actions effected them. This provides the physician with a greater understanding of how his/her actions effect others and provides the victim an opportunity to be heard and hopefully considered.

This approach can interrupt the victim bashing and cover-up that causes so much damage to the victim and their loved ones.

This approach can help the victim avoid being abused in the current Justice system which is set up for doctors as opposed to being designed for health care consumers and as a deterrent.

FOR THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY:

Mediation shows good faith and an interest in quality of care and quality of life
Removes the adversarial process
Provides opportunity to learn from mistakes
Eliminate pressure to cover-up for non-offending physicians
Will allow for each case to be considered on it's own merits
Provide for a mistake or unforeseen event to be considered as such
Eventually aid to negate the stigma attached to error
Allow for broader options in restitution
Help with their public image problems

FOR SOCIETY:

Alleviate unproductive litigation
Raise the quality of health care
Provide safer environment for health care by offering options to litigation
Allow good doctors to be seen as such
Weed out dangerous physicians by holding them accountable

Patients will be "humanized" and potentially reduce the "them and us" gap