DIARY OF A MALPRACTICE LAWSUIT

A debut memoir of a physician grappling with a malpractice lawsuit.

Anyone who enjoys reading a gripping medical or legal thriller will find all the elements of a such a novel in these pages—compelling characters, a protagonist in peril, and dramatic suspense. However, this book tells the true story of a pathologist in private practice in a Dallas suburb who became a defendant in a $10 million malpractice lawsuit. It involved a 36-year-old woman who died of cancer after her Pap smear was misread. Spenser’s lab reviewed the slides, but he didn’t examine them personally, he says; he attributed the misdiagnosis to a physician assistant in another doctor’s office, whose error delayed a diagnosis of malignant cervical cancer. Three years of litigation ensued, and as the title promises, the author documents and records the agonizing, protracted litigation as it unwound, just as one would in the pages of a personal journal. Readers witness the toll that it takes on his family, his relationships with his colleagues, and his reputation in the medical community. He also effectively shows how he tried to define and make peace with himself during and after the lawsuit; in the happiest part of the memoir, he walks away from the medical profession, enrolls in film school, and begins a new career as a screenwriter—although he did eventually return to medicine. Throughout the book, the author displays considerable empathy for the patient but shows no sympathy for his own lawyer, or for the legal system in general; indeed, his oft-repeated “first rule of lawsuits” is: “No one knows anything.” The closing pages intriguingly call to mind the formulaic TV police drama, Dragnet, which regularly concluded with an epilogue showing what happened to all the people involved in the case at hand.

A well-crafted remembrance that may be of most interest to those in the medical field.