A Lawsuit Is Not a Verdict on Your Worth as a Clinician
What medicine often gets wrong about malpractice — and what ObGyns should do instead.
A malpractice case lands on your desk. Actually it was slipped under your door. The envelope sits there before you open it, and for a moment, everything you have built, your training, your decisions, your identity as a clinician, feels like it is on trial.
That feeling is understandable.
It is also, I would argue, the wrong frame entirely.
The next step is to let your lawyer and/or the hospital’s lawyer know about it.
A wise attending once told me to take the rest of the day off when you received a letter you have beed sued as you are now “incompetent” and upset.
I wrote recently about why ObGyns and their departments should approach malpractice differently, not as a catastrophe to survive, but as a case to read.
An attorney who works these cases from the other side of the table responded with something that stopped me.
He wrote that adverse outcomes and litigation do not just test clinicians; they can sharpen judgment, deepen empathy, and reinforce the importance of communication and documentation.
He called it how professionals often refine both technical skills and the ability to navigate risk, uncertainty, and patient expectations.
When the person whose job it is to hold you accountable says this, it is worth paying attention.
What a Lawsuit Actually Is
A malpractice case is a data point. But before the family or their attorney decided something went wrong, something already did go wrong. The first requirement for any malpractice claim is damage — a bad outcome, a genuine adverse event, a patient or newborn who was harmed. That is where every case starts, not with a legal theory but with a real injury. Without damage, there is no claim, no matter how many mistakes were made.
