The Benjamin Rush Society's University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine chapter held its inaugural event on January 18, 2012.  Dr. Michael Pryce, MD, spoke to an audience of over thirty medical students and faculty on the topic of defensive medicine and medical-malpractice reform. Dr. Pryce is a U.S. Navy veteran and practicing orthopedic surgeon from Kent, Ohio. He is currently running for the U.S. Senate in the 2012 election. Dr. Pryce is also the author of the book Anathema: America's War on Medicine.

In his presentation, titled "Defensive Medicine: How Malpractice Litigation is Raising Costs and Harming Patients", Dr. Pryce used numerous examples from his thirty years of experience in private practice to illustrate some of the problems caused by today's medical-malpractice system, which causes doctors to act according to their own need to avoid lawsuits - rather than strictly in the best interests of their patients. This increases costs, reduces access to care, and increases risks due to unnecessary tests and procedures.

Dr. Pryce described his proposal to define medical malpractice more accurately in line with to true malpractice, which would constitute a miniscule percentage of current lawsuits - only those characterised by gross negligence or blatant errors, but not all procedures that have adverse outcomes.

Dr. Pryce argued that his proposal would reduce medical-malpractice insurance premiums.  He also proposed that patients could, themselves, buy insurance against sub-optimal results of treatment.  Dr. Pryce also described the "state of play" of med-mal reform at the state and federal levels.

According to Tom Boone, the founding president of the Benjamin Rush Society's chapter at the University of Cincinnati, the medical students responded to Dr. Pryce's somewhat bleak outlook on the state of med-mal reform with a higher understanding that they need to be involved in public policy.

According to Tom, the medical students understand that "physicians can't allow trial lawyers to write medical-malpractice laws that harm their ability to take care of patients."

See photos from the event at the Benjamin Rush Society's Facebook page.

The University of Cincinnati chapter of the Benjamin Rush society plans a number of future lunch events for this term's speaker series.