In many cases, patients won't sue you if they think you made a medical mistake. They may not even bother complaining about the perceived error either; they'll simply take a hike, suggests a new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

For the study, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill surveyed a cross section of adult patients who visited one of seven primary-care practices in the state during 2008.

Of 1,697 participants, 265 (15.6 percent) said that they perceived that a physician had made a mistake, 227 (13.4 percent) suspected a wrong diagnosis, 212 (12.5 percent) thought they got a wrong treatment, and 239 (14.1 percent) reported having changed physicians because of a mistake.

Dr. Christine E. Kistler and her team did not determine whether such reported errors actually occurred, but noted that in some, but not all, cases, it didn't appear that the physician had done anything wrong. "It's possible that the doctor has not explained their plans appropriately and that communication might improve what the patient expects to happen," she told Reuters Health.

Regardless of the validity of claims, 8 percent of survey respondents said they had experienced "a lot" or "severe" harm from the perceived mistake in care.

"We certainly do need to improve communication with patients and help them understand what to expect from primary care," said Dr. Ning Tang, an expert in patient safety at the University of California, San Francisco, who wrote an editorial about the new survey. Tang and Kistler recommended that patients question their doctors and seek second opinions if what they're told seems awry.

For physicians who know they've made an error, recent research from the University of Michigan Health System found that patients are more forgiving when doctors own up to mistakes and offer to compensate for them.

To learn more:
- read the full article from Reuters Health
- check out the abstract in the Archives of Internal Medicine

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