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Medical Malpractice in Twentieth Century United States: The Interaction of Technology, Law, and Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2009

Kennethe De Ville
Kennethe De Ville
Affiliation:
East Carolina School of Medicine
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Abstract

Although medical malpractice litigation in the United States has generated extensive professional and scholarly attention, few analyses of the issue have explored its underlying causes. This essay develops and employs an historical framework to explain the late 20th century phenomenon and concludes that widespread medical malpractice suits are the result of a combination of short-term topical causes and long-term cultural changes that are ignored or left untouched by most reform efforts. Most importantly, however, the development and proliferation of new and improved medical technologies has played a pivotal role throughout the entire history of the litigation, an effect that has become most prominent and important in the last third of the 20th century.

Type
General Essays
Information
International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , Spring 1998 , pp. 196 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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