Abstract

  Background & Aims: Reviewing pediatric malpractice litigation cases that have referred to Urmia medical council for characteristics of the patients, physicians, type of medical malpractice, and the outcome of claims is done to increase the experience of other pediatricians in favor of prevention of errors and defaults.

  Materials & Methods: In a retrospective-descriptive cross-sectional study all malpractice claims against pediatricians in Urmia medical council in a ten year interval were reviewed various data about characteristics of the patients, involved physicians, type of malpractice occurred, type of damages to the patients, and finally the outcome of claims were extracted and recorded in checklists and analyzed by SPSS software.

  Results: During the 10 year period (1375-1385) 37 cases of pediatric malpractice claims (3.4% of total claims) are registered in Urmia medical council. 78% of cases are related to children below 2 year age. 70% of patients are male. In 65% of cases the families of patients are city dweller. In all of cases the fathers were complainant. 28 claims are against pediatricians, 8 claims are against pediatric sub specialists and only in one case from pediatric residents. Most of the claims are from physicians involved in private practice (42%), secondary to death of the patients (52%), and from the patients who are hospitalized (57%). Most of negligence’s are related to disregarding of governmental provisions. Among these 90% are due to non attendance of on call physician in hospital at ordered time and finally from 37 case of malpractice claims 29 cases are terminated by exoneration of the involved physician.

  Conclusion: The results of this study revealed that children below 2 years old, male, hospitalized, and having a critical underlying disease are in the high risk group for malpractice claims. So it is recommended that pediatricians involved in treatment of this group of children in addition to paying more attention in the management and performing regular hospital visits if necessary, with establishment of intimate communication with family of the children along with offering adequate information try to increase the insight of family about disease of their child and it’s a natural course of disease. In this regard it seems to emphasize more often on continuous education of medical students and residents during training process and it is worthwhile for pediatricians to be in codified educational programs.

  Keywords: Medical malpractice, Malpractice claims, Pediatrics

  Address: Pediatric Department, Motahari Hospital, Kashani St, Urmia, Iran Tel: (+98441) 3459538

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  E-mail: s.hejazi@umsu.ac.ir

  Source: UMJ 2009: 20(2): 159 ISSN: 1027-3727