Professional Liability in Plastic Surgery: A Change of Scenario in Medical Professional Liability in Spain
Background:The epidemic of complaints and/or litigation, both in and out of court, for cases of alleged malpractice has increased dramatically. In Spain, claims related to plastic surgery are gaining more and more interest. Methods:The Council of Medical Associations of Catalonia database was used t...
| Autores: | , , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2023 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Barcelona |
| Repositorio: | Dipòsit Digital de la UB |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/201133 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2445/201133 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Cirurgia plàstica Processos Plastic surgery Trials |
| Sumario: | Background:The epidemic of complaints and/or litigation, both in and out of court, for cases of alleged malpractice has increased dramatically. In Spain, claims related to plastic surgery are gaining more and more interest. Methods:The Council of Medical Associations of Catalonia database was used to analyze claims related to plastic surgery from 1986 to 2021. Results:1039 claims (9.8% over 10,567 total claims) were studied. Both the total number of claims (P = 0.016; R-2=0.16) and the number of claims for plastic surgery (P < 0.0005; R-2=0.732) showed an upward trend during the period of study. In the period from 2000 to 2021, the behavior was different; while the number of total claims stabilized (P = 0.352; R-2 = 0.043), plastic surgery claims continued to show a time-related tendency to increase (P < 0.0005; R-2=0.484). The distribution was 50.12% out of court. Ten unique procedures accounted for 84.5% of the total number of claims. Liability was observed in 21.46% of the closed claims, with differences between civil (20.34%), criminal (6.89%), and out-of-court (25.53%) procedures. Regarding compensation amounts, out-of-court cases had an average of 33,169.44 euros paid; civil cases, 29,153.37 euros; and criminal cases, 37,186.88 euros. Conclusions:The increase in the number of cases can only be related to an increase in the activity carried out by plastic surgeons. There has been a change in Spain in terms of the most sought-after medical specialty, with plastic surgery having displaced the perennially most sought-after specialty, orthopedic surgery and traumatology. |
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