I Am Not a Lawyer

This is partly a note to myself and may not interest any of my two to three readers. Buuut, if you are interested in medical malpractice statistics in California, you should check out this article in today’s LA Times, which occasionally still manages good reporting, despite everything. A newish state law requires hospitals to report certain serious mistakes (”adverse events” or “never events”), most of which could form the basis of a med-mal claim. The California Department of Public Health is going to start publishing them online sometime between now and 2015. Sooner would be better, but since this is a public agency that already gave the information to a newspaper, I think my chances of getting the info via obnoxious repeat phone calls are pretty good.

From past experience, I know that recent, large-sample-size, nonbiased-source statistics on medical mistakes are hard to dig up solely via Google. So while I am not delighted that 100 Californians a month are getting hurt in medical facilities, I am pleased that these numbers are at least available.

PS If you’re not over the Clinton impeachment brouhaha yet — and I suspect most politically aware people over the age of about 26 aren’t — you might be interested in Professor Martin’s analysis of a Ninth Circuit case on what the definition of “is” is.