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“In Treatment” explores medical apologies
By Lauren | May 7, 2009
One of my favorite TV shows is HBO’s “In Treatment,” which features Gabriel Byrne as Dr. Paul Weston, an all-too-human psychotherapist struggling to help several deeply troubled patients. Psychotherapy and the law connected this season after one of Weston’s patients committed suicide. The patient’s father filed a malpractice suit against Weston. This week, the father offered to drop the suit - if Weston agreed to write a letter of apology taking responsibility for his patient’s death.
By focusing on malpractice litigation and apologies, “In Treatment” is presenting a hot issue facing the medical profession today. Even the most capable doctors make mistakes, and sometimes bad things happen even when doctors do everything right. Patients and families usually sue in the wake of a bad outcome because they think it’s the only way to find out what happened, or because they think that the doctor doesn’t care about their pain. As the medical profession has discovered (and businesses would be wise to recognize), an apology and appropriate compensation frequently derails a potential lawsuit, saving time, money, anxiety, and professional reputations.
Unfortunately, an apology can carry risk with it. Byrne did a masterful job of portraying Weston’s fear that any apology he issued would be used by the angry father in front of the psychotherapist’s licensing board to take away Weston’s license to practice. Here’s hoping that the writers of “In Treatment” choose to give Weston a good lawyer - with proper advice, Weston will be able to keep his license while giving the apology that the angry father clearly needs to come to terms with the death of his son.
Will Weston apologize? Stay tuned …
Topics: Apologies, Business Ethics, Professional Ethics, business communications, ethics |