Submitted by Wiley, Dec 29, 2007 12:53

When a mammogram is misread, the woman can die, and often, does die. I know this from a very sad personal experience. Perhaps radiologists need to be more vigilant in their work and then accept personal responsibilty when they do make a mistake. I believe that much of the high costs are from all of the legal expenses incurred when doctors and insurance companies fight legitimate cases where they are incapable of admitting they made a mistake. If I hit someone with my car, I and my insurance company should take responsibility and pay for the mistake. That's why we have insurance. Paying insurance lawyers to fight a case to the death instead of taking responsibility is a large part of why we have such high insurance costs. And even though we have high costs, the insurance companies have been experiencing large profits for many years. We have insurance in case we make a mistake. People should admit their mistakes and insurance companies should pay for them, instead of trying to convince us all that they never make mistakes and should never have to pay out. Also, given that a large percentage of malpractice cases are committed by a small percentage of doctors, perhaps the medical profession should start policing themselves better!

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