The Impact of Empathy in Physician-Patient Relationships on Malpractice Lawsuits

Indianapolis, IN

Previous medical malpractice research has shown that failure to communicate empathically is a significant factor in the decision to bring a suit for medical malpractice (Lester and Smith 1993). The goal of this experiment is to assess the causal effects of empathic communication on medical malpractice depending on case severity. This experiment tested the hypothesis that different levels of empathic communication in the physician-patient relationship will interact with case severity to affect a patient's decision to file medical malpractice. Subjects were asked to read a pre-operation transcript (high or low empathy) and a vignette that described a case outcome (low, moderate, or high severity). Next, subjects reported how likely they would be to litigate for medical malpractice. Data for this experiment are currently being collected.