Defensive Medicine in the Czech Republic - an underestimated consequence of the fear of medical liability
Abstract
As the experiences from Czech clinical day-to-day practice show quite clearly, an excessive finding of medical liability in cases of malpractice not only does not offer any safeguards towards patients, but - even on the contrary - it shall be regarded as an undesirable phenomenon. This is because it results in so-called defensive medicine, in whose name many redundant interventions unable to improve the diagnostics or the health of a patient are indicated or performed by doctors in order to protect themselves from being held liable; unconcerned however for the welfare of the patient.
This situation indeed could be supposed as a paradox, because the very same doctors are, on a daily basis, desperately facing problems connected with rationing resources within the healthcare system in which only a definite (insufficient) amount of all needed treatment is available for patients within the framework of public health insurance. The consequences of the status quo are clearly grave - primarily they can with no doubt lead to the overtreatment of a patient, which is in some perspective equally as wrong as deficient care.
Secondary, however, they also put other affiliated rights of the patient and his/her next of kin at stake. Whilst set under serious pressure of being accused of malpractice, the doctor, instead of communicating the prognosis and planned further steps properly, conceals crucial information about the withholding or withdrawal of futile treatment, i.e. thwarts the possibility of the patient to pass the end of their life with knowledge and conciliation.