Posted on: Sunday, June 16, 2002

COMMENTARY
Physician complaints low because of our aloha

By Alvin E. Murphy Jr.
Physician practising in Honolulu

Thanks to Ben Cayetano for pointing out that we should have neither an inferiority complex about our state nor believe every Mainland expert who comes along (Honolulu Advertiser, June 9).

There was much finger pointing and mea culpa in the article by Bev Creamer (Medical agency aims to fix flaws, Honolulu Advertiser, June 5) which pointed out that Hawai'i has the lowest number of physician punishments in the country. This is interpreted to mean that the state and its regulatory bodies are not working well, but there is another, more reasonable explanation.

We should remember that Hawai'i scores better on physician-patient trust than anywhere else. Furthermore, we have a tradition of aloha and working things out nonpunitively. We were among the pioneers in establishing a medical claims conciliation panel in which doctors and patients can meet with a board of professionals to air feelings and exchange views.

Most complaints get resolved there. We also have many professional societies that monitor the practice of their members. We tend to have reasonable malpractice attorneys who do not elect to pursue every frivolous case that comes to them, in contrast to many other places.

The fact that our system proceeds slowly is not all bad. The authorities should rightly concern themselves primarily with patterns of poor practice and judgment rather than isolated cases. Also, the standard of care is a moving target that changes as medical knowledge advances and old beliefs yield to new information.

Thus, there should be a deliberate process that does not rush to judgment. Speaking of errors, there are errors in Public Citizen's account of some cases, but of course that group is not regulated at all.

So where would you rather live? In one of Ralph Nader's high scoring states where every patient is seen by the doctor as a potential threat, where doctors have only so much energy for patients because their eyes are on authorities? Or would you rather live in our state of aloha where we trust each other and work out our issues?