Malpractice: A Neurosurgeon Reveals How Our Health Care System Harms Patients and Protects Dangerous Doctors

An insider’s devastating critique of modern medical practices and “an honest view of what our broken health-care system looks like” (Patricia J. Skolnik, president, Citizens for Patient Safety, LLC). In 1991, the Institute of Medicine released a landmark report revealing that as many as 98,000 patients a year were dying due to avoidable medical error. But even more recent research indicates that estimate was, if anything, a drastic understatement of the patient-safety crisis in the US health care system. In Malpractice, neurosurgeon and attorney Dr. Larry Schlachter demonstrates how most patients enter the system without any idea of the risks they face due to a medical culture that avoids transparency, perpetuates an atmosphere of blind deference to doctors, and protects dangerous doctors from any accountability. Drawing on twenty-three years of experience, Dr. Schlachter recounts unbelievable stories that illustrate the host of risks patients face whenever they seek diagnostic evaluation or go under the knife. This book brings readers inside the health care citadel, exposing the flawed culture that fuel doctor’s egos and outlining the steps every patent should take to protect himself or herself in “a bitter pill for an industry that for many years has avoided the hardest conversations about patient safety.”—Dr. Michael Dogali, MDCM, FACS, president of Pacific Neurosurgery