Court allows suit against doctor over drug effects

Physicians say the ruling will do more harm than good in their patient relationships. Dissenting judges agreed.

By Amy Lynn Sorrel, AMNews staff. Feb. 4, 2008.

Massachusetts physicians say a recent high court ruling expands physician liability well beyond the bounds of the doctor-patient relationship.

The state's Supreme Judicial Court said doctors are liable not just to patients but also anyone else "foreseeably" put at risk when doctors fail to warn patients about potential side effects of drugs they prescribe.

The Dec. 10, 2007, decision allows a mother to sue a doctor who prescribed numerous medications to a patient who hit her son in a car crash. The boy later died. The case heads to trial in a lower court, where a hearing has not yet been scheduled.

The court noted that other states have tackled the same question with mixed reviews. But doctors worry that the ruling goes too far.

"This puts someone else in the exam room besides the patient," said B. Dale Magee, MD, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society. The organization filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case as a member of the Professional Liability Foundation, a coalition of local physician and hospital groups supporting tort reform.

Doctors worry that the decision could expose them to a flood of litigation that might not be covered by their medical liability insurance, he said.

Doctors don't deny their responsibility to advise patients about treatment risks. But the ruling could do more harm than good to patient care, said Joseph M. Heyman, MD, chair-elect of the American Medical Association's Board of Trustees.

"This puts doctors in the position of warning patients against a litany of side effects instead of just the relevant ones and may frighten them into not taking the medications they need," said Dr. Heyman, an ob-gyn in Amesbury, Mass. Having to document all of those conversations or having patients sign waivers also will add time and expense to medical care, he said, adding that patients also bear some responsibility.