Malpractice

If you look at the websites for malpractice insurance and see the variation in what malpractice insurance costs, between specialties, that will give you an idea of what specialties are considered more risky than others...

I am currently involved in a case in which I am specifically named in litigation in medical malpractice for a flash fire case. BTW, a note of interest is that the MDA, who was "medically directing" me at the time, is and was never named.

A word of wisdom from someone who is living it, practice like you are in a CRNA only group, cause when it hits the fan, you will be on your own!!!

Here is a good article from AJN:

http://www.nursingcenter.com/library/journalarticle.asp?article_id=423284

From the linked article:

"The NPDB classifies RNs into four categories: nonspecialized RNs, nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives, and nurse practitioners. According to the data bank, RNs have been responsible for 3,615 malpractice payments over the history of the NPDB (only those cases reported to the NPDB between September 1, 1990, and December 31, 2001, are included). Nonspecialized RNs made the most malpractice payments (2,311 or 63.9%), followed by nurse anesthetists (820 or 22.7%), and nurse midwives (296 or 8.2%). Nurse practitioners made the fewest malpractice payments (188 or 5.2%)"

To put this in some perspective, there are nearly 40,000 CRNAs in the United States.

Actually between 1990 and 2001 there were about 26,000 CRNAs (fig.4) so 820/26,000 equals 3% getting sued over a course of 10 years?

Seems worth it.

Figure.4 

It makes sense that CRNAs would be in litigation more than Midwifes, because we see tremendously more patients and do more cases than they do.  Additional, if you look at insurance rates, and actuary tables for insurance, there is no difference in insurances costs for MDA or CRNA.  So...people will make mistakes, people will sue, it is the nature of the game.