An overview of Maine's pilot program to reduce the practice of defensive medicine in certain specialties by assuring legal protection for doctors who follow particular guidelines and discussion of why it was not used in malpractice litigation.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;13(11):792-795. doi:
10.1001/virtualmentor.2011.13.11.pfor1-1111.
Argument that physicians called upon for expert testimony in court have an ethical duty to educate the jury by offering opinions based upon published, clinically based evidence and peer-reviewed medical literature.
Medical malpractice pits the legal system's ethics of client advocacy against the medical profession's ethics of patient advocacy. Fear of liability may lead to defensive medicine, an aberration of both professions' intent.