Do you have Malpractice Insurance?

Over the many years I have been a nurse, I have heard the advice both ways. While I have never been sued, I have observed a few cases over the years.

Yes, I have my own insurance. I purchase the maximum amount I can find.

1. Who guarantees that you are going to be sued while at work? You can be sued for anything, reasonable or not -- giving advice to a friend, for example, while not at work. Your hospital will not cover you then. ... and if it's not an emergency, the "Good Samaritan Laws" may not apply. Also, even if the court finds in your favor, you will still have lots of legal bills to pay -- and your employer will not pay for them.

2. As others have said, there is no guarantee that your employer will have your best interst at heart. They might want to make a quick settlement to reduce their legal costs and keep the case out of the newpaper. But if that settlement implies that you did something wrong, it might not be in YOUR best interest to settle. Having YOUR OWN legal counsel is in your best interest. Remember, the hospital's legal counsel works for them, not you.

3. The idea that "they won't go after you" if you don't have insurance has always sounded like the biggest crock in the world to me. Most of us accumulate some assets over the course of our lifetimes ... our homes, our bank accounts, our cars, our retirement accounts, our kids' college funds, etc. You get insurance to protect THESE assets from being taken by a lawsuit. If someone is angry enough (or unscrupulous enough) to sue you, they may not care whether or not you have insurance or not: they may take whatever they can get. To "go bare" in the hopes that people whose lives your mistake may have devastated will avoid suing you because you don't have insurance seems beyond naive.

4. Finally, if you should happen to make a mistake and inadvertantly hurt someone ... don't you WANT to be in a position to compensate them adequately? Isn't it our moral obligation to make reparations for the mistakes that we make? To try to weasel out of that responsibility by not paying a small insurance premium seems to be the total absence of professional accountability.

I think we owe it to ourselves, our families, and our patients to be adequately insured.

llg

4. Finally, if you should happen to make a mistake and inadvertantly hurt someone ... don't you WANT to be in a position to compensate them adequately? Isn't it our moral obligation to make reparations for the mistakes that we make? To try to weasel out of that responsibility by not paying a small insurance premium seems to be the total absence of professional accountability.

Wow, llg. Powerful stuff to consider. Thank you.

There are nurses in some areas that are actually making more money than an MD, so it is unfare to think that they will only go after the doctor and not the nurse. I have been a nurse for over 25 years and there is no way that I would work without my own coverage, more so now than before...........

It isn't just covereage but also legal counsel if the need should arrive and that is definitely worth the cost of the policy. Thank goodness that I have never needed it but have been very glad to have it......................

It is your ultimate decision, these are only our opinions............. :balloons:

I still like our system - we are covered through our union. We could not buy malpractice insurance so the union started it up for us and they have made some wonderful suits with it - I remember one case where a nurse was unfairly accused of murdering her patients the union covered all her legal fees. It turned out to be rumour and gossip spread by some real nasty pieces of work that resented her coming into "their" hospital and challenging their ways of working.

That was a case where the nurse was not and could not be covered by vicarious liability and our laws relating to that are closer to the British model and therefor stricter.