Attorney Geoffrey Fieger and Philip Howard, founder of Common Good, met in Scott Hall's Blue Auditorium yesterday to argue the merit of establishing special courts to handle medical liability cases. WSU School of Medicine Dean Robert Frank moderated the debate, which was sponsored by the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.

In kicking off the debate, Dean Frank said that it was important to remember that medical malpractice is "directly the responsibility of the profession itself."

Mr. Howard argued that health courts could provide a more reliable system of justice because cases would be handled by judges with dedicated experience in medical malpractice. Neutral experts could be engaged by the courts to provide fair opinions, allowing cases to be decided on their merits rather than on the emotional subtext of the facts presented.

"The fundamental principal of the rule of law is that like cases be treated alike," Mr. Howard said.

Although malpractice awards amount to less than 1 percent of health-care expenditures in this country, Mr. Howard said that the cost of practicing defensive medicine to ward off potential lawsuits would be enough to provide health insurance to the nation's 45 million uninsured.

Mr. Fieger countered that establishing health courts is another attempt at tort reform, which he characterized as "a campaign to undermine every single one of your fundamental rights." He said that in states that have enacted tort reform, health-care costs remain as high as in other states without tort reform.

"If you eliminated all the lawsuits, the impact would be zero (on health-care costs)," Mr. Fieger said. "You wouldn't notice at all."

He also told the audience that the best thing a physician could do in a malpractice case is to apologize.

"If you want to do one thing, say you're sorry," he said. "Patients don't want to sue doctors. They idolize them. That's why the placebo effect works; you touch 'em, they're healed."

To view the debate in full, please visit http://www.med.wayne.edu/news_media/streamingmedia/somevents/index.asp.