Sylvania Reflections

Larry's Opinions and Items Of Interest From Penn's Woods

Sunday, May 04, 2003

There's a commentary of interest in the Forum section of today's Post-Gazette by Michael Busler, entitled "How to fix the malpactrice mess". Michael teaches economics in the MBA Program at the Penn State Great Valley Graduate School, so his opinions are somewhat suspect on two counts: 1. He's an economist and 2. He teaches MBA graduates-to-be. But nevertheless, he does make a couple of interesting points: fixing the litigation system by limiting the lawyer's rewards, and policing the doctors by relicensing those that get sued often.

My opinion on fixing the doctors is that there should be a publically available database showing who is and isn't being sued for malpractice. That would tend to drive the 5% questionable doctors out of the profession.

Hmmm. I'm wondering if that isn't already available in many cities already. I know in Cuyahoga County Ohio (Cleveland), the common pleas court has all it's cases on line in a database searchable by name.