How can women avoid becoming victims of medical malpractice?

• Author: Sweeney, Paula

"An educated woman is the best consumer Of medical care.... It is impossible to ask too many questions about one's health care."

Injuries caused by bad medical care are an enormous problem in the US. According to a Harvard Medical School study, 3.7% of hospitalizations result in adverse events, almost 30% of which stem from negligence. The Harvard study analyzed cases in New York and estimated that, in one year alone, 27,179 patients were injured, 6,895 died, and 877 became permanently disabled as a result of negligent medical care. On a national basis, the number of unnecessary injuries and deaths is staggering.

Women victims of medical malpractice have special problems due to both the peculiar nature of the damage that they sustain and their difficulty in receiving compensation for those injuries. Women consumers of health care must learn to educate themselves to ask probing and thorough questions before agreeing to surgery or other health care procedures. Many of the injuries caused to female patients as a result of medical negligence can be traced to nonessential procedures, which an educated patient/consumer can prevent.

Unnecessary surgery, including hysterectomy, is rampant. "Of the estimated 35,000,000 operations a year at least 15%, or 5,000,000 are unnecessary. Hysterectomies, dilation and curettage and caesarean section are the most over-performed procedures," according to Charles Inlander's book, Medicine on Trial. The unnecessary hysterectomy is perhaps the most prevalent abuse of women by the health care system. This is particularly true in cases where women "already" have had their children, and therefore no longer "need" the uterus or ovaries. The decision to perform a hysterectomy frequently is made without taking into consideration the impact of such an operation on patient well-being.

The National Institute for Health has reported that 22% of the 750,000 hysterectomies performed in the U.S. each year are unnecessary. Hysterectomy is radical, life-altering surgery, exposing females to premature menopause; increased cardiac risk, placing women into categories approximating those of men, as a result of the loss of naturally produced estrogen; sexual dysfunction, including pain during intercourse; and osteoporosis. Accordingly, before agreeing to so radical a procedure, the patient must satisfy herself that all less severe remedies have been attempted.

Other surgical procedures on women also are abused. Operations that should be routine frequently result in unnecessary injury and death. As pointed out by James L. Breen, president of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology: "In addition to the lack of adequate surgical training among obstetricians/gynecologists doing surgery, the number of gynecologic surgery procedures done each year is staggering." Their frequency is correlated statistically to the amount of negligent surgery. According to one study, five of the 10 most frequently performed surgeries are gynecologic: dilation and curettage (D&C), second; caesarean section, third; hysterectomy, fifth; bilateral tubal ligation, sixth; and oophorectomy and salpingo-oophorectomy (removal of tubes and ovaries), ninth.

Many methods of contraception available today may result in some type of injury, including oral contraceptives...