Why do we sue individual doctors instead of professional organizations for medical negligence?

I really believe most medical errors are the result of systemic problems. Solving these problems at scale requires action by boards, professional societies, and ACGME. Individual doctors have very little ability to change anything.

For standards of care to improve, learning must take place. How much learning from mistakes occurs when an individual gets sued for malpractice? Very little.

First of all, the chance of winning is low. Incentives for filing a case are generally lacking thanks to caps. The case generally rests on proving the standard of care was not followed. In the event of systemic problems, the standard of care is negligent or essentially non-existent. Thus, in cases where learning is most needed, it’s hardest to establish malpractice has occurred at all. Even when cases are won, ~60% of physicians who lose believe they followed the standard of care and did nothing wrong.

Where is the negative feedback in this system? It’s practically non-existent.

People talk about quality research but it’s a bunch of bs. For some surgeries, it’s impossible to even get numbers for how many are done. Forget about data on how many people are hurt.

In my emails and meetings with doctors, I’ve been told I can’t change things by just asking nicely. I’m repeatedly told people won’t change until faced with legal repercussions. But the current malpractice system is not corrective. It doesn’t incentivize improvements in care.

What needs to happen is people need to start filing class action lawsuits against specialty boards, professional societies, and ACGME. For example, if ACGME tells surgery providers that a specialty is qualified to do a surgery, despite that surgery being absent from their application for accreditation, why aren’t they getting sued? Is it the providers who should be suing them or the patients?