title: Epidemiological case survey of medical malpractice in some medical and surgical specialties.
abstract: According to the common view held by the general public, doctors can never make professional mistakes, as if by virtue of their profession they were bound to be infallible. Moreover, when mistakes do occur in the medical field they are seen in a personal light, being attributed to an individual professional figure who is expected to answer for them in both the penal and the civil field. In this paper, the authors made a retrospective analysis of 37 of all the 725 legal suits filed in some hospitals of the Apulian region (South Italy) during the period between 1991 and 2000, being all those lodged against operators in the neurological, urological, otorhino-laryngoiatric and cardiosurgical fields, recorded in the Archives of the Health Services of Bari, Brindisi, Lecce and Taranto or in those of our Forensic Department following consultations on medical and surgical responsibility.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Medicina Interna e Medicina Pubblica, Sezione di Medicina Legale, Università degli Studi di Bari, Policlinico, Piazza G. Cesare n. 11, 70124 Bari, Italy. forem@medicinalegale.uniba.it
authors.forename: Nunzio
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Di Nunno
authors.forename: Vimercati
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Luigi
authors.forename: Luigi
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Viola
authors.forename: Vimercati
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Francesco
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D016304:Hospitals, Private / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006779:Hospitals, Public / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008318:Malpractice / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008511:Medicine / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013038:Specialization; D013043:Specialties, Surgical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*