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Medical Malpractice Trends in Thyroidectomies among General Surgeons and Otolaryngologists

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to examine litigation trends with thyroidectomies in the United States from 1984 to 2018. METHODS: We used the Westlaw legal database to collect data on the defendant, plaintiff, case demographics, alleged reasons for malpractice, additional complications, and case outcom...

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Autores principales: Swonke, Megan L., Shakibai, Nasim, Chaaban, Mohamad R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7223205/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32435722
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2473974X20921141
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author Swonke, Megan L.
Shakibai, Nasim
Chaaban, Mohamad R.
author_facet Swonke, Megan L.
Shakibai, Nasim
Chaaban, Mohamad R.
author_sort Swonke, Megan L.
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: This study aims to examine litigation trends with thyroidectomies in the United States from 1984 to 2018. METHODS: We used the Westlaw legal database to collect data on the defendant, plaintiff, case demographics, alleged reasons for malpractice, additional complications, and case outcomes. RESULTS: The most common reason for litigation was vocal cord paralysis (51%, n = 28), with the majority ruling in favor of the defendant (64%, P = .042). Of those, 43% of cases (n = 12) were due to unilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) injury, and 39% (n = 11) were due to bilateral RLN injury. Of the claims due to vocal cord paralysis that resulted in indemnity payment (36%), the majority included additional damages, such as lack of informed consent (30%) or subsequent damages from permanent tracheostomy (40%), which is usually a result of bilateral nerve paralysis. CONCLUSION: RLN injury was the most common complication leading to trial, with most cases ruling in favor of the defense. However, most verdicts that favored the plaintiff or those that settled were due to subsequent damages from bilateral nerve paralysis, such as permanent tracheostomy. We encourage surgeons to consider a staged procedure in high-risk cases or cases with signal loss. There needs to be a bigger emphasis on informed consent in the training of surgeons. Surgeons should educate patients at high risk on potential surgical complications that may drastically affect their quality of life.
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spelling pubmed-72232052020-05-20 Medical Malpractice Trends in Thyroidectomies among General Surgeons and Otolaryngologists Swonke, Megan L. Shakibai, Nasim Chaaban, Mohamad R. OTO Open Original Research OBJECTIVES: This study aims to examine litigation trends with thyroidectomies in the United States from 1984 to 2018. METHODS: We used the Westlaw legal database to collect data on the defendant, plaintiff, case demographics, alleged reasons for malpractice, additional complications, and case outcomes. RESULTS: The most common reason for litigation was vocal cord paralysis (51%, n = 28), with the majority ruling in favor of the defendant (64%, P = .042). Of those, 43% of cases (n = 12) were due to unilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) injury, and 39% (n = 11) were due to bilateral RLN injury. Of the claims due to vocal cord paralysis that resulted in indemnity payment (36%), the majority included additional damages, such as lack of informed consent (30%) or subsequent damages from permanent tracheostomy (40%), which is usually a result of bilateral nerve paralysis. CONCLUSION: RLN injury was the most common complication leading to trial, with most cases ruling in favor of the defense. However, most verdicts that favored the plaintiff or those that settled were due to subsequent damages from bilateral nerve paralysis, such as permanent tracheostomy. We encourage surgeons to consider a staged procedure in high-risk cases or cases with signal loss. There needs to be a bigger emphasis on informed consent in the training of surgeons. Surgeons should educate patients at high risk on potential surgical complications that may drastically affect their quality of life. SAGE Publications 2020-05-13 /pmc/articles/PMC7223205/ /pubmed/32435722 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2473974X20921141 Text en © The Authors 2020 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Research
Swonke, Megan L.
Shakibai, Nasim
Chaaban, Mohamad R.
Medical Malpractice Trends in Thyroidectomies among General Surgeons and Otolaryngologists
title Medical Malpractice Trends in Thyroidectomies among General Surgeons and Otolaryngologists
title_full Medical Malpractice Trends in Thyroidectomies among General Surgeons and Otolaryngologists
title_fullStr Medical Malpractice Trends in Thyroidectomies among General Surgeons and Otolaryngologists
title_full_unstemmed Medical Malpractice Trends in Thyroidectomies among General Surgeons and Otolaryngologists
title_short Medical Malpractice Trends in Thyroidectomies among General Surgeons and Otolaryngologists
title_sort medical malpractice trends in thyroidectomies among general surgeons and otolaryngologists
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7223205/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32435722
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2473974X20921141
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