From the
President
Wayne Tuckson, MD
GLMS President | [email protected]
ECHI Eteka
A
niece, on my wife’s side, walked
out of her home in Enugu,
Nigeria, and was bitten by a
snake. Her father immediate-
ly took her to the University
Hospital for treatment. Her father left to
register her and, since she was but a child,
other patients came over to comfort and
inquire about her injury. She did not know
the name of the snake, but as she described
it the other patients became uncomfortable,
and many left without saying a word. The
snake that bit her, she later learned, was
Echi Eteka. In English, the name means
“tomorrow is too late,” for those bitten, if
not treated immediately and appropriately,
will die within 24 hours.
We have been bitten, not by a snake,
but by something far more insidious and
dangerous to our well being, and that is
apathy. We, by inaction, are abdicating our
voice on health matters to groups that have
not and do not always have the same level
of concern for our patients or for ensuring
our ability to perform our jobs on behalf of
our community.
In November of 2018, the Kentucky
Supreme Court, without a dissenting vote,
struck down the Medical Review Panel
(MRP) law championed by Senator Dr.
Ralph Alvarado. It was the opinion of the
court that the law “Instead of affording
claimants the ability to choose the process
of redress they wish at the time they wish
to exercise it, Chapter 216C forecloses all
immediate access to any system of justice
unless the other side agrees… [Immediate
redress of] claims is a constitutional right
that all claimants have, unless they choose
to give it up; the government cannot take
that right away.”
The concern that this law would un-
necessarily delay malpractice trials was
highlighted in an August 8, 2018 Courier
Journal article which quoted two plaintiffs
attorneys saying “The delays aren’t fair to
the citizens of Kentucky, many of whom
may have been catastrophically injured or
killed by negligence and whose families may
need resolution of their claim in order to
survive,” and that “mandatory review panels
are likely to stretch out resolution of medical
malpractice cases from an average of two
years to three or four.”
Though plaintiff attorneys often say that
the timeline for a malpractice suit is two
years, a 2006 report printed in The New
England Journal of Medicine noted that this
was actually up to five years. The MRP, as
written, would have up to one year in which
to issue its determination. Though this may
add up to one year to the process, it is more
likely that between one to four years could
be saved. This was a good law that would
weed out frivolous lawsuits and leave in
place those with merit to proceed through
the normal process.
Decisions, such as the MRP, which have
a direct impact on the nature of our prac-
tices, have and are being made by others
without enough input from us. Rest assured
that associations representing the interest of
trial lawyers, optometrists, nursing, physi-
cian assistants, and the Kentucky Hospital
Association have been active in promoting
their group’s interest and their members
have been financially supportive of these ef-
forts. Therefore we must ask our colleagues,
are they members of GLMS and the KMA
and are they supportive with either time
or money?
I highlight the MRP not because I think
that there are those amongst us unfamiliar
with the issue, rather, because this should
serve as a wake up call from our complacen-
cy. Drs. Bruce Scott, Frank Burns, Robert
Couch, Monalisa Tailor and John Roberts,
(just to name a few,) members of GLMS
and KMA have continuously risen to go
to battle on our behalf. Unfortunately, the
line of white coats is short and in need of
replenishment.
Hopefully, Dr. Alvarado may revisit the
MRP as a constitutional amendment, and if
he does we cannot stand by unengaged in
the process and expect that things will go
in our favor. They have not in the past and
they will not tomorrow.
Echi Eteka kills, and we have been bit-
ten. The little girl who was bitten lived to
tell me the story. Let us act so that we can
tell a better tale of tort reform to those who
come after us.
Dr. Tuckson is a practicing colon and rectal
surgeon.
JANUARY 2019
5