Use Rule 34 to Request Time Records From the Physician
posted on July 22nd, 2008 in Uncategorized by clintAccording to Jerome Groopman, M.D., author of How Doctors Think, a physician will interrupt a patient describing his or her symptoms within 18 seconds. Within that short time, many doctors decide on the likely diagnosis and best treatment. Often, decisions made this way are correct, but at crucial moments they can be wrong — with catastrophic consequences. Groopman goes on to explain how patients can stop doctors from making snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact the patient’s health. With this in mind, the malpractice lawyer should send a Rule 34 request for the defendant physician’s daily and weekly log of how many patients he or she saw during the month the client was injured or misdiagnosed. Also, ask for the shift and number of hours that the defendant physician worked during the day and week that the client was injured or misdiagnosed. Avoid a HIPPA problem by asking for the redaction of the patient’s names and other indentifying information. This should be a routine part of your discovery requests. You may find that your client was the victim of another snap judgment that Dr. Groopman derides as a major problem in the healthcare delivery system.