Gastroenterology - Accusations and Errors in Treatment

Since three decades the extrajudical expertise procedures of the Expert Committee and Arbitration Group has served to pacify the doctor-patient relationship. Systematic analyses of accusations and errors provide valuable data that help to avoid treatment errors and liability disputes against physicians. Disease of the gastrointestinal tract were found ex post to be the main diagnosis in 10 % of the patients entering complaints. The most common benign diseases were bile duct diseases (1.5 %), acute appendicitis (1.2 %) and diverticulosis (0.9 %); malignant tumours of the digestive organs were found in 1.8 %. About one-third of the procedures were directed internists; with 25 % the quota of treatment errors was less than the general average of one third. With an overproportional frequency (56 %) diagnosis errors were confirmed for the occurrence of appendicitis. Diagnostic and therapeutic endoscopic examinations were the subject of the claimed erroneous treatment by internists in 34 % of the cases: perforations and postinterventional pancreatitis were frequent reasons for filing a complaint. For the resultant injuries, including 4 fatalities, the internists were found to be liable for damages in a total of 17 % of the cases.