PROFESSIONAL ISSUES

Tort reform gets own bracelet campaign

Physicians hope to spread awareness next through green T-shirts.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Dec. 6, 2004.

This is one accessory not likely to make the fashion shows in Paris. It clashes with nearly every color and boasts no precious jewels.

Doctors in southern Illinois love it, though. They wear the lime-green wristband to see patients, visit friends and go out to dinner. The item doesn't make much fashion sense, but it sure makes a lot of professional sense.

The wristbands are a sign of solidarity, a tiny billboard that urges "Keep Doctors in Illinois" in black letters and offers a unique approach to the fight against rising medical liability insurance rates. Physicians hope that wearing the bracelets will rally support across Illinois and push state legislators to act on tort reform.

"We needed to really bring this issue to the forefront and have it be an everyday thing. Step one is to get the message out, and that's where the bracelets came in," said Lynne Willett Nowak, MD, an internal medicine hospitalist at Memorial Hospital in Belleville, Ill., near St. Louis. "You don't want something to blend, and lime green doesn't blend."

Illinois is one of the states the AMA lists as being battered by a medical liability insurance crisis that has forced physicians to leave states, retire early or reduce services. The AMA and other physician groups have fought on state and national levels for reforms such as caps on noneconomic damages.

St. Clair and Madison counties in southern Illinois have been hit hard by rising premiums, physicians said. In the last 18 months, about 160 doctors have fled the area.

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