Let there be no doubt but that while physicians recognize the importance of the legal profession in providing a "safety net" for the transgressions assailing their patients they see great inconsistency in the honesty of that process.  The lawyers responsibility to their client is well established.  Less well established is the lawyer's responsibility to the "Ethic of Law."  

 There exist many circumstances today where unnecessary and inappropriate litigation drains society of inordinately great amounts of money by doing some things which really didn’t need to be done in the first place. The silicone breast implant and pedicle screw issues serve as shining examples of this.  In addition, unnecessary and inappropriate litigation serve to waste the talents of the "best and the brightest" of the  legal and medical professions in activities not destined to make the world a better place.  Their skills could certainly be employed for more productive purposes.  Part of this waste of resource is the manner in which information is processed, recognized as being valid, and thus used.

It needs to be stated that if it were not for the assistance of the legal community many patients would have no recourse to insult, injury or misbehavior by health care professionals.  The "cover-up" phenomenon is just as prevalent in medicine as it is in other endeavors but in the health care system public disclosure is the means by which we learn from these experiences. If transgressions do not reach the public domain they are likely to be repeated.

Equipped with the deep financial pockets provided by their tobacco litigation a bevy of "super-lawyers" are now turning their heavy artillery to focus on fraud in the managed care industry.  There is little question but that the continued progression of outrageous acts perpetrated on unsuspecting patients by managed care miscreants needs to be checked.  Misleading and deceptive misrepresentation and omissions directed to medical consumers by managed care appear to be the norm. Even with scant evidence of "responsible" managed care providers one wonders if the legal process, as we presently know it, isn't going to lay waste to the health care system as mega-suits for fraud are pursued. Isn't there enough adversity in just being ill?  Who needs more?