opinion

"Locality rule" should be retained

Posted April 19, 2010

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Regarding "Liability by locality" (link): Imposing local standards and not national ones should be retained in medical malpractice.

There is no evidence local standards are lower or damage patients.

National standards are years behind local innovations, and will crush such innovations. For example, telemedicine is likely more frequent in rural settings. It may be crushed in a lawsuit, and ended by an inexperienced plaintiff expert.

Local factors may not be under the control of the doctor.

National standards may violate the 10th Amendment, which grants powers to the states that were not delegated to the federal government.

David Behar, MD, Bethlehem, Pa.

The print version of this content appeared in the link issue of American Medical News.

Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/04/19/edlt0419.htm.

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