Submitted to the Alton Telegraph

Dear Editor,

I am writing on behalf of Illinois physicians in response to your recent articles related to the medical liability crisis in Illinois (“Malpractice insurance crisis waning,” Nov. 8; “Med mal worries continue to linger,” Nov. 27; “No new effort foreseen on med mal,” Nov. 28).  Thank you for keeping this important issue in the public eye.

I am encouraged by the expansion at Alton Memorial Hospital and Saint Anthony’s Health Center.  Hopefully their efforts to attract physicians to the Metro-East area will be successful.  It would be wrong, however, to take this expansion as a sign that the medical liability crisis is over.

The quotation attributed to Saint Anthony’s CEO E.J. Kuiper in your Nov. 27 article is right on target: the malpractice crisis is a slow cooker.  Effective reforms were not instituted overnight, and the full effects of their removal will not be felt overnight either.  Nevertheless, if those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, Illinois may once again be headed for physician shortage and decreased access to care.

Prior to the 2005 reform law, communities throughout Illinois saw physicians reducing their services or leaving altogether.  In 2005, there was not a single neurosurgeon treating head traumas south of Springfield.  Alton lost every physician who could perform spinal surgery, leaving all such cases to be transferred to St. Louis.  There are dozens of other examples, and this disturbing trend has already begun to reappear: in a recent survey conducted by researchers at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, nearly half of new physicians educated in Illinois plan to leave the state to practice medicine.  Most (62 percent) cite the hostile liability climate as a major factor in that decision.

Physicians are not interested in preventing patients from being fully compensated when the unthinkable does occur.  But in order for doctors to be comfortable working in Illinois, awards for non-economic damages need to be more predictable.  Nobody knows that better than the people of Alton and the rest of the Metro-East area, who sparked our liability reform effort just a few years ago.  Recent setbacks have not dampened our resolve to pursue responsible solutions to the liability problem. This is not a “dead issue,” and I would encourage everyone reading this to talk to your own doctor and get a firsthand look at the real impact of Illinois’ medical liability climate.

Sincerely,

Steven M. Malkin, MD, FACP
President
Illinois State Medical Society