Massachusetts considers requiring all surgeries to be videotaped

Doctors and plaintiff lawyers are the bill's biggest critics, saying the doctor-patient relationship would become a Hollywood production.

By Amy Lynn Sorrel, AMNews staff. April 23/30, 2007.

Massachusetts physicians are not smiling about the possibility of being on camera in the operating room.

Legislation introduced there in January would require licensed hospitals to make video and audio recordings of all surgeries. Failure to do so would result in a yet-to-be-determined fine.

State Rep. Martin J. Walsh, a Democrat and the bill's sponsor, said he hopes to protect patients and shed some light on medical errors. Walsh anticipates modifications to the early-stage proposal, including an amendment that would require the patient to request the videotaping for it to take place.

At press time in early April, no hearings were set on the bill. But public debate was well under way.

Physicians and plaintiff lawyers alike say the idea might seem like a useful tool for providing hard evidence in medical liability cases as to what happened in the operating room. But in reality, they say, it will do more harm than good.

"It becomes an imposition on the physician-patient relationship and starts out by saying, 'I don't trust you to do my surgery,' " said Kenneth R. Peelle, MD, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, which opposes the bill.

The measure also comes at a time when, anecdotally, doctors and legal experts say many hospitals over the past several years began prohibiting patients from taping births because of liability concerns.

But ob-gyn B. Dale Magee, MD, said the intent of the current bill is even more dangerous.