Doctor fights to know who advanced suit

Two sides disagree on whether anonymity encourages frivolous lawsuits or ensures that physicians won't be bullied into not signing certificates of merit.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. July 28, 2003.

Emergency physician William P. Sullivan, DO, believes he has a right to know the name of the doctor who signed the certificate of merit that allowed a medical malpractice lawsuit to be filed against him.

In June 1999, Dr. Sullivan inserted an emergency intravenous catheter into a car crash victim. The woman died, and Dr. Sullivan was one of a number of physicians named in a medical malpractice suit alleging that he should have "appreciate[d] the signs and symptoms of hypovolemic shock and internal bleeding" and that he should have "surgically repair[ed] the bleeding."

The lawsuit against Dr. Sullivan, who practices in suburban Chicago, was dropped before it ever went to trial. But he now has to list the filing anytime he applies for medical liability insurance.

Dr. Sullivan argues that the doctor who signed the report -- an experienced trauma surgeon -- should have known from looking at the charts that there was never a case against him.

And he says physicians who sign these initial reports in court filing should be held responsible for the expert advice they give. He wants their names made public.

The problem: Illinois law doesn't automatically require that a physician signing the report attached to an initial lawsuit filing be identified.

In an effort to weed out frivolous lawsuits, Illinois is one of 14 states that require a physician to verify merit to a medical malpractice lawsuit before its filing. But the state is one of five that doesn't automatically disclose the name of the doctor signing that certificate of merit.